THE 


LFCT 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY 

AND  THE 

BISHOPS'  DEGLARAT 


txhraxy  of t:he  theological  ^emmar^ 

PRINCETON    .    NEW  JERSEY 


PRESENTED  BY 

V/illiam   L.    Tucker 

BX  9  .C4  8 

Christian  unity  and  the 
bishops '  declaration 


The  Church  Club  Lectures. 


Uniform  red  cloth.     Pricey  per  volume ^  50^.  net; 
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1888.— THE  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING  OF  THE 
KARLY  CHURCH,  as  a  Bisis  f..r  the  Re-Union  of 
Christendom  Bv  Bishops  CoXE  and  Seymour,  and  the 
Rev,  Drs.  Richey,  Garrison,  and  Egar. 

1889. -THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES. 
Sketches  of  its  Continuous  History  from  the  Earliest 
Times  to  the  Restoration.  By  Bishops  Doane  and 
KiNGDON,  and  the  Rev.  Drs.  Hart,  Allen,  and  Gailor. 

1890.— THE  POST -RESTORATION  PERIOD  OF 
THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES.  In 
continuation  of  the  volume  for  1889.  By  Bishops  Perry 
and  McLaren,  Van.  Dr.  Davenport,  and  the  Rev,  Drs. 
Mortimer  and  Richey 

1891.— CATHOLIC  DOGMA.  The  Fundamental  Truths 
of  Revealed  Religion.  By  Bishops  Littlejohn  and 
Sessums,  the  Rev  Drs.  Huntington,  Mortimer,  and 
Elliott,  and  the  Rev   Prof.  Walpole. 

1892.— THE  CHURCHS  MINISTRY  OF  GRACE. 
By  Bishops  Garrett  and  Grafton,  the  Very  Rev.  Dr. 
RoBBiNS,  and  the  Rev.  Drs.  Clark  and  Fiskh. 

1893. -THE  SIX  (ECUMENICAL  COUNCILS  OF 
THE  UNDIVIDED  CATHOLIC  CHURCH.  By 
Bishop  Leonard,  thn  Rev.  Drs.  Dix,  Elmrndorf  and 
Riley,  and  the  Revs.  R.  M.  Benson  and  W.  McGarvey. 

1894._THE  RIGHTS  AND  PRETENSIONS  OF  THE 
RO.MAN  SEE.  By  Bishops  Paret  and  Hall,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Waterman,  and  the  Revs.  Greenough  White, 
Robert  Ritchie,  and  Algernon  Sidney  Crapsey. 


E.  &  J.  B.  YOUNG  &  CO. 
Cooper  Union,  Fourth  Ave.,         New  York. 


Christian  Unity 


?roF  PfdJu^ 


JAN  16  1964 


f^OGlUl    ?>t?i 


AND  THE 


Bishops'  Declaration 


tUcctures 


DELIVERED   IN^lSgS    UNDER   THE    AUSPICES   OF   THE 
CHURCH    CLUB   OF    NEW    YORK 


NEW  YORK 

E.    &   J.    B.    YOUNG   <<;:   CO. 

COOPER   UNION,    FOURTH   AVENUE 
1895 


Copyright,  1895. 
Bt  E.  &  J.  B.  YOUNG  a  CO. 


CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  I. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S  WORD  AND  THE 


CHURCH  S   ACT 


By  the  Rt.  Rev.   Thomas  F.  Gailor,  D.D.,  Assistant  Bishop 

of  Tennessee, 

LECTURE  IL 

THE    HOLY   SCRIPTURES  AS  THE   RULE   AND   ULTI- 
MATE  STANDARD    OF   FAITH  .  .  .  41 

By  the  Rev.  Charles  E.  W.  Bjdy,  D.D.,  D  C.L.,  Professor 
of  Old  Testament  Literature  and  Interpretation,  in 
'  the  General  Theological  Se?ninary. 

LECTURE  in. 

THE  TWO   CREEDS 79 

^y  Ven.  Charles  S.  Olmsted,  of  Cooper stown,  N.   Y., 
Archdeacon  of  the  Susquehanna. 

LECTURE  IV. 

THE  TWO   GREAT  SACRAMENTS  .  .  .  .         II9 

By  Ven.  A.  St.  J.  Chambrd,  D.D.,  of  Lowell,  Mass.,  Arch- 
deacon of  Lowell  and  Dean  of  Convocation. 


iv  CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  V. 

THE   HISTORIC    EPISCOPATE I47 

£y  the  Rev.  Francis  J.  Hall,  J\T.  A . ,  Instructor  of  Theology 
in  the  Western  Theological  Seminary,  Chicago,  III. 


INTRODUCTION. 


THIS  volume  of  Lectures  on  Christian 
Unity  follows  in  natural  order  the 
volume  of  1893,  on  the  Councils  of  the  Un. 
divided  Church,  and  the  volume  of  1894,  on 
the  Papal  Schism.  But  it  has  happened  fur- 
ther that  the  Lectures  of  1895  have  proved 
to  be  most  fortunate  in  point  of  timeliness. 
While  they  were  in  course  of  delivery  a  re- 
markable revival  of  interest  in  the  subject 
occurred,  manifest  on  every  hand  in  secular 
as  well  as  in  religious  newspapers,  and  scarce 
were  they  concluded  when  the  pulpits  dealt 
with  the  topic  on  Whitsun-Day.  Now,  as 
they  are  going  through  the  press,  the 
Leag^ue  of  Catholic  Unity,  composed  of 
representatives  from  seven  of  the  principal 


vi  INTRODUCTION. 

religious  bodies,  has  put  forth  its  circular, 
beginning  in  the  following  terms: 

In  view  of  the  growing  desire  for  Church  unit)-, 
we,  whose  names  are  subscribed,  devoutly  seek- 
ing the  Divine  guidance  and  blessing,  hereby  as- 
sociate O-irselves  as  a  league  for  the  promotion  of 
Catholic  unity. 

Without  detaching  ourselves  from  the  Christian 
bodies  to  which  we  severally  belong,  or  intending 
to  compromise  our  relations  thereto,  or  seeking  to 
interfere  with  other  efforts  for  Christian  unity,  we 
accept,  as  worthy  of  the  most  thoughtful  consid- 
eration, the  four  principles  of  Church  unity  pro- 
posed by  the  Bishops  of  the  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church,  at  Chicago,  in  1886,  and  amended  by 
the  Lambeth  Conference  of  1SS8. 

We  believe  that  upon  the  basis  of  these  four 
principles  as  articles  of  agreement  the  unification 
of  the  Christian  denominations  of  this  country 
may  proceed,  cautiously  and  steadily,  without  any 
alteration  of  their  existing  standards  of  doctrine,  ' 
polity,  and  worship  which  might  not  reasonably 
be  made  in  a  spirit  of  brotherly  love  and  harmony, 
for  the  sake  of  unity  and  for  the  furtherance  of  all 
the  great  ends  ot  the  Church  of  Christ  on  earth. 

In  order  to  promote  Catholic  unity  we  recom- 
mend, as  proposed  by  the  Lambeth  Conference, 
that  these   articles   be  carefully   studied   in   con- 


INTRODUCTION.  Vll 

nection  with  "  the  authoritative  standards  of  doc- 
trine, worship  and  government  adopted  by  the 
different  bodies  of  Christians  into  which  the  Eng- 
h'sh-speaking  races  are  divided";  and  to  this  end 
we  reverently  and  lovingly  invoke  the  counte- 
nance and  aid  of  the  Bishops  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  and  of  all  other  Catholic  Bish- 
ops and  Christian  ministers  of  every  order  and 
name. 

May  our  united  prayers  be  so  blended  with  the 
prevalent  intercession  of  our  ascended  Lord  that 
we  shall  all  become  one  in  Him,  for  the  glory  of 
His  Eternal  Father,  for  the  good  of  His  Church, 
and  for  the  redemption  of  the  v(/'orld  ! 

-  It  is  therefore  with  oreat  confidence  that 
the  Church  Club  of  New  York  presents  the 
volume  of  1895  to  the  judgment  of  all 
Christian  men,  being  assured  not  only  of 
the  importance  of  the  subject  which  it  treats, 
but  also  that  the  public  mind  is  now  direct- 
ed to  that  subject  with  peculiar  attention. 
The  learned  Lecturers  appeal  alike  to  the 
intellect  and  the  affections  of  their  separated 
brethren  in  Christ,  and  it  may  not  be  too 
much  to  hope  at  this  time  that  both   mir.d 


viii  INTRODUCTION. 

and  heart  shall  be  engaged  by  their  words  ; 
a  man  need  not  be  a  Churchman  to  be 
touched  by  the  pathetic  giving  up  of  things 
human  in  the  Bishops' offer  of  1886:  "That 
in  all  thinor-s  of  human  orderincf  or  human 
choice,  relating  to  modes  of  worship  and 
discipline,  or  to  traditional  customs,  this 
Church  is  ready  in  the  spirit  of  love  and 
humility  to  forego  all  preferences  of  her 
own." 

Bishop  Gailor's  remark  is  that:  "  To  de- 
nounce this  Declaration  of  the  Bishops  as  a 
sectarian  effort  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  to  absorb  other  Christian  denomi- 
nations, or  to  look  upon  the  movement  as 
anything  else  than  unselfish,  generous,  and 
full  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  is  to  confess  to 
blind  prejudice  and  real  indifference  to  the 
reunion  of  the  Christian  world."  And  it  is 
simply  and  literally  true,  as  he  says,  that  a 
single  proposition  of  it  "exacts  of  Church- 
men more  ol  generous  sacrifice  bothofprcf- 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

erence  and  conviction  than  the  agreement 
to  the  whole  Declaration  would  require  from 
any  other  body  of  Christian  people."  These 
utterances  are  the  key-note  of  the  present 
volume. 

It  remains  for  the  Church  Club  to  fix 
here  a  record  of  its  deep  obligation  to  the 
accomplished  Lecturers  of  1895  -Bishop 
Gailor,  Archdeacons  Chambreand  Olmsted, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Body,  and  the  Rev.  Francis  J. 
Hall — for  their  generous  labors. 

New  York,  July  21,  1S95. 


Cbrietian  ITlnitv^— ^bc  flDaetcr'^  moto 
ant)  tbc  Cburcb'6  Hct 


LECTURE  I. 

THE  RT.   REV.  THOMAS  F.  GAILOR,  D.D 
Assistant  Bishop  of  Tennessee. 

CIIRrSTTAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 
WORD  A  AW  THE  CHURCH'S  ACT. 

It  is  a  depressing  experience  to  visit  a  town  of 
1, 800  inhabitants,  where  perhaps  500  people  at- 
tend church  on  Sunday,  and  to  find  that  there  arc 
ten  or  twelve  rival  churches  in  the  place,  bidding 
for  the  patronage  of  these  five  hundred  people; 
and  that  the  expense  of  maintaining  this  multi- 
tude of  sects  is  so  great  that  no  denomination 
can  afford  to  have  a  resident  minister.  Yet  this 
is  getting  to  be  a  not  uncommon  ecclesiastical 
condition  in  many  Eastern  and  Southern  towns. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  under  the  circum- 
stances, that  a  large  proportion  of  the  community 
are  non-church-goers,  that  the  great  majority  are 
indifferent,  and  that  there  is  no  religious  provis- 
ion for  works  of  practical  charity.  There  arc 
large  districts  in  this  country  where  religion  flour- 
ishes after  a  certain  fashion,  and  where  yet  a  free 


4  CHRISTIAN  UNITY—THE  MASTER'S 

hospital,  or  a  free  home,  well-conducted  and  un- 
der Christian  influences,  for  the  poor,  the  aged, 
the  infirm,  is  almost  unknown. 

The  United  States  Census  Report  for  1890  gives 
a  list  of  128  Christian  denominations,  with  fif- 
teen non-Christian  and  156  unattached  congrega- 
tions. These  denominations  represent  differences 
of  doctrinal  belief  and  practice  on  almost  every  arti- 
cle of  the  Christian  faith.  The  Divinity  of  J  ESU3 
Christ,  the  Atonement,  the  value  and  meaning  of 
the  Sacraments,  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man, 
the  nature  of  God,  the  inspiration  and  design  and 
contents  of  the  Bible,  the  form  and  purpose  of 
public  worship;  each  and  all  of  these  great  themes 
are  subjects  of  serious,  and,  in  some  instances,  of 
fierce  and  intolerant,  dissension.  Even  the  sub- 
tlest metaphysical  speculations,  and  the  simplest 
variations  in  taste  and  temperament,  are  the  bases 
on  which,  for  reasons  of  conscience.  Christian  men 
and  women  separate  themselves  for  their  habitual 
worship. 

There  are  those  who  use  musical  instruments 
and  those  who  do  not.  There  are  those  whosing 
hymns  and  those  who  sing  psalms.  There  are 
"  The  old  Two-Seed  in  the  Spirit  Predestinarian  "; 
and  there  are  the  "Defenceless";  "The  Free 
Will";  the  "United";  "The  Separatists";  the 
"  Reformed  ";  "  The  Associate  Reformed  ";  "  The 


WORD  AND  THE  CHURCH' S  ACT.  5 

Primitive";   "The  Independent"  and  "  The  Re- 
organized." 

Although  there  are  Christian  houses  of  worship 
in  the  United  States  with  a  seating  capacity  of 
44,ooD,ooo,  valued  at  $680,000,000,  there  are  only 
20,000,000  members  reported,  and  of  these,  1,000,- 
000  are  divided  into  103  denominations,  varying 
in  size  from  lOO  to  100,000  members  each,  holding 
more  than  $66,000,000  worth  of  property,  the  an- 
nual interest  on  which  would  support  more  than 
4,000  missionaries  in  the  foreign  or  domestic  field. 

Meanwhile,  sixty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States,  or  more  than  44,000,000 
of  people,  are  reported  as  without  any  religious 
affiliation  whatever.  And  infidelity — the  infidel- 
ity that  represents  intellectual  scepticism  and  the 
infidelity  that  represents  spiritual  indifference  or 
despair,  and  the  infidelity  that  represents  moral 
failure — infidelity  continues  to  be  aggressive 
and  widespread.  Crime  is  increasing  more  rapid- 
ly than  the  population.  Our  improved  educa- 
tional facilities,  of  which  we  are  justly  proud,  have 
enabled  criminals  to  become  intellectually  sharper, 
more  enterprising,  and  more  successful.  The 
amount  of  money  publicly  known  to  have  been 
lost  by  embezzlements  and  robberies  for  1894  was 
$25,234,1 12,  as  compared  with  $19,929,692  for  1893. 
Official  corruption  and  commercial  dishonesties 
and  social  falsehoods  have  become  so  common 


6  CHRISTIAN   UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

that  confidence,  that  surest  foundation  of  the 
prosperity  of  States,  is  rare  between  man.  and 
man,  and  the  business  of  the  country  feels  the 
creeping  palsy  of  that  anti-Christ  that  maketh  and 
worketh  a  lie.  The  chill  of  uncertainty  affects  our 
missionary  work  at  home  and  abroad.  The  Chi- 
nese write  articles  in  our  own  reviews  demanding 
to  know  why  we  ask  the  Chinese  to  become  Chris- 
tians, when  we  ourselves  seem  to  be  unable  to  de- 
termine what  Christianity  is. 

But  worse  than  this:  Our  seemingly  utter  in- 
ability to  agree  together  on  any  rational  state- 
ment of  the  Christian  religion  has  led  many  men 
and  women  to  the  conclusion  that  after  all  the 
Christian  Gospel  is  not  a  definite  message  cf  help 
and  blessing  to  mankind,  but  that  it  is  a  force  or 
influence — vague  and  indefinable — representing 
the  highest  spiritual  aspiration  of  the  race  and  in- 
cluding in  its  cloudy  and  indistinct  and  diffusive 
atmosphere  everything  that  man  thinks  or  im- 
agines to  be  good  and  true.  Therefore,  whatever 
fancy  or  theory  or  interpretation  seems  to  any 
man  or  woman  to  be  the  sufficient  explanation  of 
life's  problems,  this  is  straightway  labelled  Chris- 
tianity and  supported  by  appeal  to  the  Christian 
Scriptures.  We  have  lived  to  see  Buddhism, 
Gnosticism,  Sabcllianism,  Docetism,  Occultism, 
each  claiming  to  be  the  true  Christian  Gospel,  and 
many  simple  Christians  utterly  unable  to  refute 
the  claim. 


WORD  AND   THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  7 

111  the  fear  and  love  then  of  JESUS  Christ  Our 
Lord  Who  died  and  rose  again  for  us  and  Who 
shall  come  to  judge  ;  in  distress  before  the  in- 
creasing boldness  of  confident  unbelief  and  osten- 
tatious sin  ;  in  shame  over  the  pitiful  contentions 
of  the  sects  of  Christendom — every  earnest  be- 
liever must  ask  himself:  (i)  Whether  it  was  the 
purpose  of  Christ  that  these  divisions  should  exist; 

(2)  How  these  divisions  were  brought  about;  and 

(3)  What,  in  faith  and  love  and  reason,  can  be  done 
to  end  the  strife. 

Our  Lord's  recorded  words  in  His  prayer  for 
His  people  are  the  standing  challenge  to  those 
who  confound  unity  with  uniformity,  and  under- 
take to  justify  the  present  divisions  as  not  incon- 
sistent with  the  progress  of  the  Gospel.  "  That 
they  all  may  be  one;  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me, 
and  I  in  Thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us: 
that  the  world  may  believe  that  Thou  hast  sent 
Me"  (St.  John  xvii.  21).  It  is  a  constantly  re- 
curring thought  ill  St.  Paul's  epistles.  The  mis- 
sionary enthusiasm  of  the  first  Christians,  their 
patience  in  suffering,  their  hopeful  endurance  of 
persecution,  their  generous  philanthropy  and 
active  charity,  their  very  moral  earnestness, — was 
influenced  and  strengthened  by  the  conviction 
that  there  was  "  One  Lord,  one  faith,  one  bap- 
tism. One  God  and  Father  of  all  "  (Eph.  iv.  5,  6); 
that  they,  "being  many,  were  one  body  in  Christ, 


8  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

and  every  one  members  one  of  another"  (Rom. 
xii.  5).  It  was  the  farewell  message  of  St.  John. 
Ignatius  in  Syria  appeals  to  it,  and  Irenaeus  in 
Gaul  assumes  it  as  the  characteristic  of  the  Chris- 
tian system.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  real- 
ized in  the  early  Church.  The  unity  existing  in 
the  middle  of  the  third  century  was  a  visible  and 
potent  and  intelligible  unity,  quite  compatible 
with  individual  development  and  free  institutions. 
It  was  not  based  upon  rigid  and  mechanical  and 
technical  statements  of  doctrine,  for  the  Creed 
professed  was  the  simplest  expression  of  the  great 
facts  of  the  Gospel,  viz.:  Belief  in  God  the  Father 
and  His  forgiveness;  in  God  the  Son  and  our  res- 
urrection through  Him,  and  in  God  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  His  everlasting  life  ;  and  making  these 
saving  truths  real,  actual,  practical,  in  human  ex- 
perience here  and  now:  Belief  in  the  Kingdom 
of  Christ,  the  Hoi}'  Catholic  Church.  This  unity 
admitted  of  wide  diversity  in  the  ritual  and  modes 
of  worship  of  the  various  Dioceses.  It  was  not 
incompatible  with  great  variety  of  speculative 
belief  and  of  practical  administration.  But  it  was 
a  unity  with  tremendous  power  for  good,  because 
it  rested  on  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  and  the 
soul's  contact  with  the  Incarnate  One,  through 
the  means  of  grace  and  help  conveyed  in  the  One 
Body. 

It    was    during   the    reign    of    this    unity    that 


WORD  AND   THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  9 

Cyprian  was  able  to  say  of  the  whole  Church  that 
"the  Church,  flooded  with  the  light  of  the  Lord, 
puts  forth  her  rays  through  the  whole  world,  with 
yet  one  light,  which  is  spread  upon  all  places, 
while  its  unity  of  body  is  not  infringed.  She 
stretches  forth  her  branches  over  the  earth  in  the 
riches  of  plenty,  and  pours  abroad  her  bountiful 
and  onward  streams,  yet  is  there  one  Head,  one 
Source,  one  Mother,  abundant  in  the  results  of 
her  fruitfulness"  {De  unitat.  Eccl.  4).  It  was  in 
the  vigor  of  this  corporate  unity  that  the  Church 
survived  all  persecutions,  and  conquered  the  Ro- 
man Empire  and  set  the  cross  of  Christ  on  the 
palaces  of  kings.  It  was  this  that  met  the  shock 
of  barbarian  invasions,  converted  the  conquerors, 
and  saved  the  civilization  of  Europe  from  com- 
plete destruction.  It  was  before  this  unity  was 
entirely  subverted  by  Papal  imperialism  that  the 
great  missionary  conquests  of  the  Church  were 
achieved  and  the  nations  of  Europe  became  Chris- 
tian nations;  and  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  no 
great  people  has  been  converted  to  Christianity 
since  that  original  unity  of  the  Church  was  lost. 

The  story  of  that  loss  is  the  saddest  chapter  in 
Ecclesiastical  History.  I  shall  not  elaborate  it, 
because  it  was  told  with  wealth  of  learning  and 
research  to  the  Church  Club  last  year.  Of  course 
it  was  not  a  swift  and  sudden  revolution,  but  a 
gradual  assumption  and  concentration  of  author- 


lO  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

ity  in  the  Roman  See.  The  men  who,  one  after 
another,  brought  it  about,  were  not  intentionally 
disloyal  to  the  past.  0;i  the  contrary,  they  acted, 
as  a  rule,  according  to  their  conscientious  convic- 
tions. History  was  not  an  open  book  to  them. 
Grave  and  serious  evils  threatened  to  rob  the 
Church  of  her  spiritual  character  and  authority; 
and  they  felt  the  necessity  of  opposing  a  spiritual 
absolutism  to  the  secular  absolutism  that  menaced 
the  Church's  life.  I  say  this  much  for  Hilde- 
brand  and  his  predecessors.  And  yet  under  Hil- 
debrand's  influence  in  1054  the  unity  was  broken 
by  the  schism  between  the  East  and  West;  and 
under  Hildebrand's  dominion,  as  Gregory  VII., 
in  1080,  the  old  idea  of  unity  was  abandoned  in 
the  organization  of  the  new  Papal  Empire.  The 
revolution  under  Hildebrand,  for  it  was  a  revolu- 
tion, is  the  greatest  epoch  in  Church  History  be- 
fore the  Reformation.  By  him  and  his  immediate 
successors  between  1074  and  1300  a  new  Secular 
Power,  fenced  about  and  guarded  with  spiritual 
sanctions,  lifted  its  head  above  all  dominions  of 
the  world.  It  claimed  authority  over  all  earthly 
kingdoms  and  "  exacted  an  allegiance  on  oath,"  as 
Phillimore  says  {Interjixtional  Law,  p.  203),  "  far 
above  that  which  the  municipal  law  of  any  coun- 
try could  impose  or  any  temporal  sovereign  could 
enforce."  It  collected  feudal  revenues  and  created 
and  carried  on  its  own  Department  of  State.     It 


IVORD  AND   THE  CITURCrrS  ACT.  II 

claimed  for  its  official  representatives  in  various 
countries  a  peculiar  status  and  separate  rights. 
Under  this  new  r^^lme  the  Roman  Pontiff  claimed 
the  title  I'ope  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  Bish- 
ops. The  enforced  celibacy  of  the  clergy  created 
a  disciplined  army  of  officers  loyal  to  the  one 
ruler  and  detached  from  ordinary  human  inter- 
ests. The  Popes  ceased  to  date  their  acts  from 
the  years  of  the  reign  of  the  Emperor,  or  to 
stamp  their  coins  with  his  impress.  The  power 
of  excommunication  was  no  longer  limited  to 
spiritual  offences,  but  was  extended  to  secular 
affairs.  And  the  glory  of  the  new  Empire  reached 
its  zenith  in  Boniface  VIII.,  whose  hwW,  "■  Unam 
Sanctam'^  declares  that  all  temporal  as  well  as  all 
spiritual  power  is  in  the  Church,  and  excommuni- 
cates any  secular  judge  who  presumes  to  inter- 
fere in  criminal  cases  against  ecclesiastical  per- 
sons. 

We  are  not  discussing  here  the  truth  or  falsity, 
the  strength  or  weakness,  of  the  Mediaeval  system, 
as  an  interpretation  of  the  Christian  Gospel.  It 
was  part  of  God's  providential  order  in  history,  and 
the  poor  and  oppressed  found  in  it  often  a  merci- 
ful relief  from  feudal  tyranny.  But  two  results, 
or  at  least  two  coincident  tendencies,  are  very 
evident.  During  the  period  after  Hildebrand,  the 
tendency  to  define  doctrine  in  scholastic  fashion 
ran  unchecked.     The  dogma  of  transubstantiation 


12  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

and  the  rule  of  compulsory  confession  were  de- 
clared in   1215.     The  new  doctrine  of  Purgatory- 
took  definite  shape  and  the  practice   of  pardons 
and    indulsrences    became    common.       And    the 
genius  of  the  time  was  for  organization,  for  the  ob- 
jective and  the  external.     The  power  of  the  Pcpe 
and  the  sanctity  of  his  office  became  so  overshad- 
owing, so  compelling  and  immediate,  that  men 
foreot   that  there  ever  had  been  an  ante-Hilde- 
brandine  constitution.     The  doctrine  of  the  Apos- 
tolical Succession  in  its  real  constitutional  sense, 
/.(f.jthat  each  Bishop  by  virtue  of  his  consecration 
receives  his  authority  from  God  to  minister  and 
rule,  was  practically  denied.     Augustine   Trium- 
phus  in    1350,  in   his  book    on    the  Papal  power, 
asserts  that  the  Pope  alone  is  the  recipient  of 
authority  from  God  and  that  the  Pope  is  entitled 
to  the  honor  due  to  God,  but  only  ministerially. 
John    Gerson,    Chancellor    of  the    University    of 
Paris,  1409,  plaintively  declares   that    "we  have 
only  painted  images  of  Bishops"  {Giesler,  iv.  131). 
And  as  late  as  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  Spanish 
Bishops  strove  in  vain  for   a  recognition   of  the 
delegated  apostolic  authority  in  the  Episcopate 
independent  of  the  Pope. 

Thus,  when  the  tide  of  the  Reformation  came, 
the  Reformers  began  the  movement  with  a  faulty 
and  inadequate  conception  of  the  constitution  of 
the  Church;  with  an  inherited  prejudice  in  favor 


WORD  AND   THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  13 

of  a  leg-al,  theological  system,  and  a  fierce  dislike 
of  the   whole  institutional   idea   of  Christianity. 
The  creed-makers  of  the  Reformation,  either  from 
necessity  or  indifference,  did  not   attempt  to  go 
back  of  the  Mediaeval  system  and  revive  a  consti- 
tution that  obtained  in  earlier  ages.     They  simply 
swept   away  the   authority    of  the  Church   alto- 
gether and  replaced  it  with  the  absolute  and  un- 
related authority  of  the   Bible.     As  Beard  says, 
"Christianity  had  always  been  presented  to  them 
by  the  Mediaeval  Church  as  a  system  of  reasoned 
religious  truth,  complete  in  all  its  parts,  and  they 
could  not  conceive  of  it  in  any  other  way  "  {Hib. 
Led.,  266).     They  were  as  exact  and  as  technical 
in  their  system  of  logical  and   minute  detail  as 
the  schoolmen  were;   and  they  substituted  for  a 
vast    and    symmetrical    and    minute    system    of 
dogma,  based  on  the  Bible  and  the  witness  of  an- 
tiquity  and   tradition,  another  system,  quite   as 
minute   if   not    so    symmetrical,  based    on    their 
interpretation    of   the    Bible    without    regard    to 
antiquity.     It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  constitution 
of  the  Church  and  the  authority  of  the  Church  as 
taught  and  held  in  the  age  of  the  first  Council  of 
Nicaea  had  no  fair  and  full  consideration  from  the 
men  who  made  the  creeds  and  inaugurated  the 
ecclesiastical  systems  of  the    sixteenth   century. 
In  their  minds  apparently  the  Mediaeval  Church 
with  its  manifest  defects  and  offences   was  the 


14  CHRISTIAN  U.VITY—TIfE  MASTER'S 

only  historical  ecclesiastical  system  possible.  It 
seemed  to  them  that  the  only  possible  Bishops 
were  the  secularized  ecclesiastical  barons — too 
often  self-indulgent  and  unspiritual — who  held  the 
rule  over  them  in  the  Holy  Roman  Empire;  and 
they  had  been  taught  by  the  extreme  Papalists  to 
regard  these  ecclesiastics  as  a  degree  and  not  an 
order  in  the  ministry  and  little  more  than  appen- 
dages to  the  Pope.  Bishop  Burnet,  200  years 
ago,  said  that  the  theory  of  parity  of  orders  was  the 
very  dregs  of  Popery.  To  the  Protestant  the  only 
ecclesiastical  unity  was  a  hard,  monarchical  abso- 
lutism, fenced  about  with  the  mazes  of  the  Canon 
Law  and  innumerable  decisions;  and  to  this  very 
day  it  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  the  challenge, 
even  from  prominent  religious  teachers,  that  a  be- 
lief in  the  historical  succession  of  authority  in  the 
Episcopate,  in  any  sense,  means  nothing  less  than 
Popery.  Yet  the  Augsburg  Confession  more 
than  once  declares  that  if  Bishops  were  only  chief 
ministers  of  the  Word  and  Sacraments  (perhaps 
an  impossible  thing  in  their  opinion!)  "the 
Churches  ought"  not  only  "to  render  obedience 
to  them,"  but  "  by  divine  right."  But  as  practi- 
cally infallible  potentates,  with  power  of  the 
sword,  lording  it  over  God's  heritage,  the  con- 
science of  men  could  not  tolerate  them. 

What  the  Swiss  and  German  Reformers  rejected 
then  was  not  visible  unity,  or  Catholic  unity,  but 


WORD  AND  THE  CHURCH' S  ACT.  15 

the  Mediaeval  uniformity — not  Bishops,  but  secu- 
larized Bishops — not  the  ancient  Constitution  of 
the  Church,  but  the  Mediaeval  Constitution. 

The  result,  however,  was  that  they  broke  com- 
pletely with  the  Mediaeval  Church,  and  in  so  do- 
ing cut  themselves  off  purposely,  advisedly,  from 
external  continuity  with  the  past.  The  Bible 
was  the  sole  appeal  for  doctrine,  and  reverence 
for  it  was  the  only  connecting  link  with  primitive 
Christianity.  In  theory  each  man  was  privileged 
to  get  his  theology  by  his  own  reading  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  in  theory  the  Bible  was  so  plain  that  all 
men  who  would  read  it  arir^ht  would  find  the  same 
teaching  as  to  the  fundamental  truths  of  the  Gos- 
pel. In  practice,  however,  this  was  found  to  be 
delusive,  for  Socinus,  who  denied  the  Divinity  of 
Christ,  read  the  Bible  as  carefully  as  Luther  and 
Calvin,  who  asserted  it.  There  is  some  truth  in 
the  Unitarian  contention  that  the  Continental 
Reformers  arbitrarily  refused  to  carry  out  their 
principles  to  their  logical  conclusion,  and  stopped 
short  from  timidity  or  from  inherited  scrupulosity 
from  entirely  abandoning  the  ancient  definitions 
of  the  faith.  Little  by  little,  as  was  natural,  doc- 
trine, orthodox  doctrine, which  meant  the  accepted 
confessions  of  the  two  great  schools,  became  the 
basis  of  whatever  unity  survived.  Doctrine  be- 
came the  test  of  the  Church's  continuity.  The 
historic  Church  was  no  longer  a  succession  of  liu- 


i6  CHRISTIAN-  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

man    beings  in  an    organized  society   persisting 
from  age  to  age,  but  it  was   a  succession  often 
interrupted  by  breaks  of  many  years — a  succes- 
sion of  beliefs  and  opinions;  and  the  people  who 
at  any  period  in   the  past  were   thought  to  have 
held  views  similar  to  those  of  the  Reformers  were 
regarded  as  members  of  the  true  Church,  and  all 
others    were   excluded.     In    other   words,   Chris- 
tianity became  a  system  of  doctrines  instead  of 
an  institution.     This  led  to  the  theory  of  an  in- 
visible   Church.       When    Cyprian    spoke    of   the 
Church  he  meant  the  outward,  visible,  organized 
Church,   consisting  of  all  the  baptized,   the  net 
that  held   fish   both   good    and  bad.     When    the 
later  Reformers  spoke  of  the  Church  they  meant 
the  invisible  and  unknown  number  of  the  elect 
who  are  saved  and  known  only  to  God,  or,  as  the 
Scotch  Confession  puts  it,  "  the  one  company  and 
multitude   of   men   chosen  of  God,   who    rightly 
worship  and  embrace  Him  by  true  faith  in  JESUS 
Christ  .  .  .  the  communion  not   of   profane  per- 
sons, but  of  saints  .  .  .  invisible,  known  only  to 
God."     In  their  view   all  visible  Christian  socie- 
ties are  only  imperfect  associations  for  the  spread 
of  the  true  faith,  and  are  not  churches,  except  in 
a  secondary  sense. 

All  these  features,  though  in  a  different  form, 
appear  in  the  system  of  John  Calvin  at  Geneva, 
which  was  destined  to  become  the  dominant  influ- 


IVOKD  AND  THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  17 

ence  in  the  Protestant  world.  Calvin,  a  layman 
himself,  broke  consciously  and  utterly  with  the 
Mediaeval  and  ancient  Church,  and  the  external 
form  and  visible  continuity  of  the  Church  were 
nothing  to  him  as  principles.  When  we  read  of 
the  enthusiastic  and  intolerant  devotion  of  his 
followers  to  the  Genevan  discipline  this  seems  to 
be  a  contradiction.  But  really  it  was  not.  The 
root-principle  of  Calvin's  position  was  that  the 
existing  Church  was  thoroughly  corrupt  and  that 
he  himself  was  directly  and  immediately  called  of 
God.  And  this  conviction  in  his  own  mind  and 
in  the  minds  of  his  disciples  was  reinforced  by  his 
truly  remarkable  and  scholastic  system  of  doc- 
trines, which  was  given  to  the  world  in  his  'In- 
stitutes "  when  he  was  only  twenty-seven  years 
of  age,  and  which  never  underwent  any  serious 
change.  Thus,  in  his  Reply  to  Sadolet  (p.  39), 
he  admitted  without  hesitation  that  he  did  not 
have  the  ancient  discipline  of  the  Church,  but 
maintained  that  as  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  and 
other  prophets  were  raised  up  by  God  without  the 
customary  regular  appointment,  so  was  he  called 
to  preach  the  truth  to  an  abandoned  age.  The  doc- 
trine was  everything  ;  the  form  of  government 
was  an  accident.  This  accounts  for  the  fact  that 
he  was  quite  willing  to  recognize,  and  indeed  en- 
dorsed, the  Episcopal  government  in  England, 
and  in  his  commentary  on  Titus  {Arg^  declared 


1 8  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

that  the  Apostles  had  delegated  their  Apostolic 
authority  to  other  men.  It  was  not  a  question 
with  him  of  order,  but  of  doctrine.  He  made  up 
his  own  mind  that  the  original  scriptural  organi- 
zation of  the  congregation  was  Presbyterian,  and 
this  system  he  established  at  Geneva — not  be- 
cause he  wished  to  impose  it  upon  all  people  and 
all  churches,  but  because  his  own  clear  intelli- 
gence made  him  avoid  the  uncertainty  of  Luther- 
anism  by  providing  for  the  permanence  and  au- 
thority of  definite  organization.  It  was  Calvin's 
successors  who  claimed  for  the  system  an  exclu- 
sive divine  right,  and  they  did  so  because,  first 
of  all,  Calvin,  who  was  an  inspired  man,  had  de- 
signed it,  and  secondly,  because  it  was  found  in 
practice  to  be  the  only  system  in  which  the  doc- 
trine could  be  maintained.  It  should  never  be 
forgotten  that  the  all-important  question  was  a 
question  oi  doctrine,  and  not  of  organization.  As 
Prof,  Fisher  says,  "  Against  the  theory  of  the  min- 
istry, which  separates  the  clergy  as  a  distinct  self- 
perpetuating  body  in  the  Church — as  a  close  cor- 
poration— from  the  laity,  the  Reformers  in  all 
Protestant  lands  uttered  an  emphatic  protest." 
"The  purpose  of  the  ministry  was  to  perform 
acts  which  the  flock  was  empowered  to  perform, 
but  which  from  the  nature  of  the  case  it  must  per- 
form through  agents  and  instruments."  Had  this 
principle  been  conceded  by  the  leading  Reform- 


WORD  AND  THE  CIIURCIP S  ACT.  19 

ers  in  England,  there  never  would  have  been  any 
history  of  Puritanism.  It  took  men  many  years 
to  realize  that  the  true  question  was  deeper  and 
more  radical  than  any  discussion  on  Church  gov- 
ernment. It  was  a  difference  of  conviction  as  to 
what  Christianity  was.  And  while  they  were 
seemingly  fighting  about  prelacy  and  vestments, 
they  were  really  opposed  to  each  other  on  the 
fundamental  conception  of  religion. 

A  glance  at  the  English  Reformation  will  show 
what  I  mean.  Making  every  allowance  for  the 
arbitrary  power  of  masterful  sovereigns  and  sub- 
servient parliaments  and  over-loyal  subjects,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  there  was  something  be- 
sides— some  spirit,  some  tendency,  in  the  English 
Reformation  that  differentiated  it  from  the  move- 
ment in  any  Continental  country.  As  Beard  says, 
"  The  English  Reformation,  both  in  its  method  and 
result,  is  a  thing  by  itself."  "  There  was  a  native 
element  stronger  than  any  Lutheran,  Calvinistic 
or  Zwinglian  influence."  *' It  followed  no  prece- 
dents and  was  obedient  only  to  its  own  law  of  de- 
velopment." And  again,  "  One  f.ict  more  than 
any  other  differentiates  the  English  Reformation 
— I  mean  the  continuity  of  the  Anglican  Church. 
There  is  no  point  at  which  it  can  be  said,  here  the 
old  Church  ends,  here  the  new  begins." 

That  is  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter.  The 
preservation  of  the  personal,  tactual  connection 


20  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

with  the  Mediaeval  Church,  and  through  that  with 
the  ancient  Church,  distinguishes  the  English 
movement.  There  was  no  popular  upheaval. 
There  was  no  widespread,  deep  disgust  with  the 
past  to  hurl  the  nation  into  revolution.  There 
was  no  desire  or  attempt  to  substitute  a  doc- 
trinal system  for  the  ancient  Constitution.  On 
the  contrary,  throughout  the  earlier  stages  of  the 
movement,  doctrine  was  left  alone  and  every  care 
taken  to  preserve  the  continuity  of  the  institution 
as  of  more  importance  than  the  doctrine.  From 
first  to  last  the  external,  visible  organization  of 
the  Church  was  tenaciously  maintained.  Without 
any  sort  of  hesitation,  provision  was  made  for  a 
common  prayer  and  ritual  worship.  Without  the 
least  discussion  the  Episcopal  government  was 
continued.  There  was  no  thought  of  breaking 
utterly  with  the  past,  and  there  was  no  man  in 
England  so  forceful  and  dominant  as  either  Luther 
in  Germany  or  Calvin  in  Geneva.  Instead  of  cut- 
ting loose  from  the  old  Church,  the  historical 
character  of  the  Christian  religion,  as  built  up  on 
and  handed  on  by  human  lives,  i.e.,  the  Catholicity 
of  the  Church  in  time  as  well  as  in  place,  was  un- 
falteringly recognized.  When  the  doctrinal  re- 
vision came  to  be  made,  the  principle  of  appeal  to 
the  ancient  Church  was  unhesitatingly  adopted. 
As  Prof.  Rawson  Gardiner  sdi-ys^History,  ii.,  516), 
"  The   teaching   of    Laud    was    the    teaching    of 


IVOUD  AND  THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  21 

Cranmer  and  Hooker,  viz.:  that  the  basis  of  belief 
was  the  ]5ib]c,  but  that  the  Bible  was  to  be  in- 
terpreted by  the  tradition  of  the  early  Church." 
The  invisible  Church  is  not  so  much  as  mentioned 
in  the  XXXIX.  Articles,  and  all  baptized  persons 
are  declared  to  be  members  of  Christ's  Church. 
The  statement  in  Article  XX.,  that  "  the  Church 
hath  authority  in  matters  of  faith,"  refers  undoubt- 
edly to  the  whole  Church  and  not  to  any  portion 
of  it,  and  is  after  all  only  a  corollary  of  the  funda- 
mental principle.  Beyond  the  historic  creeds  and 
the  definitions  of  the  four  General  Councils  there 
was  no  disposition  to  define  doctrine.  The  Arti- 
cles of  Religion  on  controverted  questions  arc 
only  negatively  definitive.  The  continuity  of  the 
Church  and  the  life  of  the  Church  were  deemed 
of  far  greater  importance  than  the  elaboration  of 
any  system  of  theology. 

Now,  whether  this  were  a  right  principle  or  not, 
it  was  the  direct  contradiction  of  the  Calvinistic 
or  Puritan  theory.  It  was  a  counsel  to  modera- 
tion at  a  time  when  men  wanted  extremes,  and 
both  Puritans  and  Roman  Catholics  regarded  it  as 
treason. 

English  Puritanism  dates  from  Feb.  10,  1556 
{Ntale^x.,  68),  with  a  letter  written  by  the  exiles 
at  Geneva,  in  which  they  say,  in  speaking  of  the 
English  Prayer  Book  and  its  provisions  for  wor- 
shii),    "  We   have   thought   fit  to  lay  aside   these 


22  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER  S 

human  inventions  and  have  contented  ourselves 
with  that  wisdom  which  is  found  in  God's  Book." 
"We  have  set  up  such  an  order  as  in  the  judg- 
ment of  Mr.  Calvin  and  others  is  most  agreeable 
to  Scripture." 

The  Westminster  Confession  indeed  uses  strong 
language  about  the  value  and  importance  of  the 
visible  Church,  language  which  Dr.  Briggs  has 
quoted  with  force  and  sympathy.  But  the  West- 
minster Confession  represents  that  later  stage  of 
Puritan  conviction  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred, and  cannot  be  taken  as  the  expression  of 
the  original  views  of  the  Swiss  Reformer^.  As  it 
stands,  it  is  careful  to  insist  upon  the  true  Church 
as  being  invisible,  and  limits  the  Catholicity  of 
the  visible  Church  as  being  a  Catholicity  of  race 
(■'  not  to  the  Jews  only")  and  not  a  Catholicity  in 
time,  or  historical  succession.  The  American 
edition  of  this  Confession  consistently  modifies  the 
phraseology  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  thus 
more  nearly  approximates  the  Scotch  platform. 

The  Puritans  simply  could  not  get  themselves 
to  admit  that  the  continuation  of  anything  in  the 
way  of  discipline  and  worship  that  had  obtained 
in  the  old  Church  would  be  consistent  with  their 
new-found  freedom.  It  required  great  resolution 
and  faith,  no  doubt,  but  with  determined  earnest- 
ness they  took  their  stand  on  the  text  of  the 
Bible  and  their  own  conscientious  interpretation 


WORD  AND   THE  CnURCIFS  ACT.  7^ 

of  it.  And  this  radical  difference  of  view  crops 
out  in  every  conference  that  was  ever  held  in 
England  for  the  sake  of  unity.  The  most  super- 
ficial examination  of  the  records  of  the  Savoy  Con- 
ference will  show  that  compromise  was  simply  im- 
possible. There  was  no  concession  as  to  ritual  or 
government — no  concession  that  meant  less  than 
complete  revolution  of  their  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity— that  the  Churchmen  could  have  made, 
that  would  have  been  satisfactory.  Baxter  de- 
clared (Cardwell  Conf.,  383)  afterwards  that  if 
every  concession  asked  for  had  been  made,  and 
yet  if  the  single  rubric  remained  asserting  the  sal- 
vation of  infants  who  died  immediately  after  Bap- 
tism, they  could  not  conform. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  these  old  disputes, 
because  the  denial  of  the  necessitv  of  the  organic 
continuity  of  the  Church — the  avowed  principle 
of  Puritanism — has  been  the  support  and  justifica- 
tion of  every  new  Christian  organization  ;  and 
because  I  believe  that  if  ever  our  unhappy  divisions 
are  to  be  healed  wc  must  find  out  the  root  and 
origin  of  them,  and  frankly  and  honestly  express 
our  views.  For,  as  Carlyle  says,"  Only  in  a  world 
of  sincere  men  is  unity  possible.  And  there,  in 
the  long  run,  it  is  as  good  as  certain." 

I  have  not  denounced  nor  condemned  the  Puri- 
tan position,  nor  have  I  used  harsh  language  about 
the  Roman  position.     We  are  all  Christian  men, 


24  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

and  working  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
I  have  said  that  the  Mediaeval  Church  after  Gre<?- 
ory  VII.  was  a  system  of  absolute  government 
that  emphasized  the  objective  and  external  side 
of  religion  at  the  expense  of  that  which  was  sub- 
jective and  internal,  encouraging  the  elaborate 
and  minute  definition  of  dogma  without  regard 
to  the  thought  or  traditions  of  other  historical 
branches  of  the  Christian  Church.  I  have  said 
that  the  principle  of  Continental  Protestantism 
was,  on  the  other  hand,  extremely  subjective — 
practically  a  denial  of  the  necessity  of  the  exter- 
nal, organic  continuity  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  a  substitution  for  it  of  a  system  of  doctrine 
based  on  an  independent  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  without  any  necessary  reference  to  an- 
tiquity. 

I  claim  that  neither  one  of  these  extreme 
positions  is  a  complete  or  adequate  or  neces- 
sary interpretation  of  the  spirit  and  purpose  of 
the  Christian  Church  ;  that  each  in  its  turn  has 
been  the  occasion  of  lamentable  divisions  ;  and  as 
long  as  they  are  uncompromisingly  maintained 
there  is  no  reasonable  hope  of  visible  unity  among 
Christian  people. 

Great  ideas  germinate  slowly  at  first  and  take 
root  in  the  minds  of  individuals  before  they  are 
accepted  by  the  masses;  and  it  may  be  so  with 
the  idea  oi  Christian  unity.     It  is  not  to  be  ex- 


WORD  AND   THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  25 

pected  that  religious  bodies  will  take  action  until 
their  members  desire  it.  And  again,  while  no 
scheme  of  unity  should  be  considered  for  a 
moment  that  does  not  include  the  great  historic 
Churches  of  Christendom,  yet  unquestionably  our 
affinities  of  race  and  language  and  religion  com- 
pel us  to  make  our  first  appeal,  not  to  the  Greek 
or  Roman  Churches,  but  to  that  English-speak- 
ing Protestant  world  made  up  of  many  men 
of  many  creeds,  whose  forefathers  v/ere  our  fore- 
fathers in  the  English  Church.  And,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  there  is  an  increasing  number  of 
able  and  earnest  Christians  who,  though  loyal 
Protestants,  are  not  wedded  for  weal  or  woe  to 
that  extreme  Puritan  principle — nay,  who  are 
willing  to  modify  and  restate  it  for  the  sake  of 
unity;  men  who  believe  that  the  conditions  that 
evoked  the  heated  partisanship  and  inordinate  sus- 
picion of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
do  not  exist  to-day;  and  who  feel  that  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  accumulated  evils  of  the  time,  no 
prejudice,  no  bitter  memory  of  their  forefathers' 
quarrels  should  stand  in  the  way  of  mutual  con- 
cession and  fraternal  sympathy.  There  are  indeed 
few  thoughtful  men  who  do  not  regard  that 
extreme  subjective  theory  of  religion  as  delusive; 
and  no  orthodox  Protestant  can  fail  to  deplore  the 
application  of  it  which  has  led  Dr.  Martineau 
{Scat  tif  Author.,  etc.,  p.650)  and  others  to  the  con- 


2  6         CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

elusion  that,  as  the  private  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  is  the  principle  of  Protestantism,  so  the  au- 
thority of  the  Bible  itself  is  inferior  to  the  inter- 
nal illumination,  and  only  those  Scriptures  are  to 
be  retained  which  come  up  to  the  spiritual  stand- 
ard of  the  individual  mind.  As  Hegel  says  {Philos. 
of  Hiit.,  p.  344)>  "Whether  a  Christian  doctrine 
stands  thus  and  thus  in  the  Bible  is  not  the  only 
question.  The  profoundest  thought  is  connected 
with  the  Personality  of  Christ — with  the  historical 
and  external."  And  Dr.  Philip  Schaff,  after  con- 
trasting the  outward  legalism  of  the  Mediaeval 
Roman  system  with  the  evangelical  freedom  of 
Protestantism,  says  {Apost.  Ck  ,  p.  678): 

"Who  that  considers  the  Holy  Scriptures  and 
the  idea  of  the  One,  Holy,  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Church  will  further  venture  to  justify  the  extreme 
individualism,  the  rmmberless  divisions  and  con- 
flicting party  interests  into  which  the  best  posi- 
tively Christian  powers  of  Protestantism  seem  to 
be  almost  hopelessly  rent  ?  Who  will  deny  that 
the  Protestantism  of  this  day  is  as  much  in  need 
of  reformation  as  was  the  Catholicism  of  the  six- 
teenth century?  This  reformation  we  look  for  in 
the  final  reconciliation  of  Catholicism  and  Prot- 
estantism— in  the  ideal  Church  of  the  future — not 
a  new  Church,  but  the  final,  perfect  product  of 
that  of  the  present  and  the  past." 

Thus  in  one  form  or  another  the  old  question 


WORD  A  A' D   rilE  CHURCH' S  ACT.  27 

as  to  the  relation  between  reason  and  authority 
continually  recurs  :  whether  Ave  owe  anything  to 
the  past;  whether  our  judgments  should  be  in- 
fluenced and  restrained  by  the  definitive  action  of 
the  Universal  Church,  or  whether  the  interior 
illumination  of  the  individual  should  supersede  all 
other  criteria  of  revealed  truth.  In  times  of  revo- 
lution men  may  be  induced  in  passion  to  denounce 
the  imposition  of  any  restriction  upon  private 
rights,  but  the  permanent  stability  of  religion,  of 
government  and  of  society  demands  the  recogni- 
tion of  another  principle.  To  quote  Mr.  Balfour: 
"  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  we  can,  without  any 
great  expenditure  of  research,  accumulate  in- 
stances in  which  Authority  has  perpetuated  error 
and  retarded  progress,  for,  unluckily,  none  of  the 
i  nfluences,  Reason  least  of  all,  by  which  the  history 
of  the  race  has  been  moulded  have  been  produc- 
tive of  unmixed  good.  .  .  .  Yet  .  .  .  we  must  not 
forget  that  it  is  Authority  rather  than  Reason  to 
which,  in  the  main,  we  owe  not  religion  only,  but 
ethics  and  politics;  that  it  is  Authority  which 
supplies  us  with  essential  elements  in  the  premises 
of  science;  that  it  is  Authority  rather  than  Reason 
which  lays  deep  the  foundations  of  social  life ;  that 
it  is  Authority  rather  than  Reason  which  cements 
its  superstructure.  And  though  it  may  seem  to 
savor  of  paradox,  it  is  yet  no  exaggeration  to  say, 
that  if  we  would  find  the  quality  in  which  we  most 


28  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

notably  excel  the  brute  creation,  we  should  look 
for  it,  not  so  much  in  our  faculty  of  convincing  and 
being  convinced  by  the  exercise  of  reasoning,  as 
in  our  capacity  for  influencing  and  being  influenced 
through  the  action  of  Authority  "  {Foundxtions  of 
Btlief,^^.  237,238). 

When,  in  this  free  Republic,  the  dangers  that 
threaten  our  social  and  political  fabric  are  felt  to  be 
the  outcome  in  large  measure  of  widespread  irrever- 
ence for  historical  institutions,  impatience  of  intel- 
lectual or  moral  restraint,  disregard  or  contempt 
for  the  hopes  and  ideals  of  our  forefathers,  denial 
of  the  Nation  as  an  organism  with  Divine  sanctions, 
and  self-assertive  exploitations  of  visionary  the- 
ories of  government;  surely  the  fashionable  dec- 
lamation against  creeds  on  the  part  of  some 
Christian  ministers,  i.e.,  against  the  idea  of  the  fix- 
edness of  any  revealed  truth  from  God,  and  the 
indiscriminate  appeals  to  popular  prejudice  against 
reverence  for  the  thought  and  practice  of  the 
Universal  Church,  are  not  calculated  to  restore 
confidence  or  to  educate  the  popular  mind  to 
more  sober  judgment,  either  in  politics  or  morals. 

Dr.  Schaff's  candid  words  above  quoted  are  a 
fair  challenge  to  earnest  men.  Is  there  any  ad- 
justment possible.''  Is  there  any  rational  syn- 
thesis possible  of  private  judgment  and  traditional 
authority .''  Are  there  any  lines  upon  which  we 
can  go  to  work  to  bring  about  that  "final,  perfect 


MWKD  AND    THE  CIIURC/l'S  ACT.  29 

product,"  of  which  he  speaks,  "  of  the  Church  of 
the  present  and  the  past  "  ? — any  middle  way  be- 
tween tyranny  and  license ;  any  fixed  historic 
principles  of  the  ancient  Church  to  be  maintained 
which  shall  restrain  while  they  protect  and  defend 
the  true  liberty  of  Christian  men  ? 

This  was  the  problem  presented  to  the  minds 
of  the  Bishops  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
which  they  answered  in  the  following  declara- 
tion, set  forth  by  authority  of  the  Upper  House, 
in  the  General  Convention  of  1886  : 

Whereas,  In  the  year  1S53,  in  response  to  a  Memorial 
signed  by  many  Presbyters  of  this  Church,  praying  that  steps 
might  be  taken  to  heal  the  unhappy  divisions  of  Christen- 
dom, and  more  fully  to  develop  the  Catholic  idea  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  the  Bishops  of  this  Church  in  Council 
assembled  did  appoint  a  Commission  of  Bishops  empowered 
to  confer  with  the  several  Christian  Bodies  in  our  land  who 
were  desirous  of  promoting  godly  union  and  concord  among 
all  who  loved  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity  and  truth; 

And  Whereas,  This  Commission,  in  conformity  with  the 
terms  of  its  appointment,  did  formally  set  forth  and  advocate 
sundry  suggestions  and  recommendations  intended  to  accom- 
plish the  great  end  in  view; 

And  Whereas,  In  the  year  1880,  the  Bishops  of  the  Ameri- 
can Church,  assembled  in  Council,  moved  by  the  appeals 
from  Christians  in  foreign  countries  who  were  struggling  to 
free  themselves  from  the  usurpations  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome, 
set  forth  a  declaration  to  the  effect  that,  in  virtue  of  the 
solidarity  of  the  Catholic  Episcopate,  in  which  we  have  part, 
it  was  the  right  and  duty  of  the  Episcopates  of  all  National 
Churches  holding  the  primitive  Faith  and  Order,  and  of  the 
several  Bishops  of  the  same,  to  protect  in  the  holding  of  that 


30  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

Faith,  and  the  recovering  of  that  Order,  those  who  have  been 
wrongfully  deprived  of  both  ;  and  this  without  demanding  a 
rigid  uniformit}^  or  the  sacrifice  of  t";e  national  traditions  of 
worship  and  discipline,  or  of  their  rightful  autonomy; 

And  Whereas,  Many  of  the  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus  among 
us  are  praying  with  renewed  and  increasing  earnestness  that 
some  measures  may  be  adopted  at  this  time  for  the  reunion 
of  the  sundered  parts  of  Christendom  : 

Now,  Therefore,  In  pursuance  of  the  action  taken  in  1853 
for  the  healing  of  the  divisions  among  Christians  in  ourown 
land  ;  and  in  iSSo  for  the  protection  and  encouragement  of 
those  who  had  withdrawn  from  the  Roman  Obedience,  we. 
Bishops  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  in  Council  assembled  as  Bishops  in  the 
Church  of  God,  do  hereby  solemnly  declare  to  all  whom 
it  may  concern,  and  especially  to  our  fellow-Christians  of 
the  different  Communions  in  this  land,  who,  in  their  several 
spheres,  have  contended  for  the  religion  of  Christ : 

1.  Our  earnest  desire  that  the  Saviour's  prayer,  "  That  we 
all  may  be  one,"  may,  in  its  deepest  and  truest  sense,  be 
speedily  fulfilled  ; 

2.  That  we  believe  that  all  who  have  been  duly  baptized 
with  water,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  are  members  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church ; 

3.  That  in  all  things  of  human  ordering  or  human  choice, 
relating  to  modes  of  worship  and  discipline,  or  to  traditional 
customs,  this  Church  is  ready  in  the  spirit  of  love  and 
humility  to  forego  all  preferences  of  her  own  ; 

4.  That  this  Church  does  not  seek  to  absorb  other  Com- 
munions, but  rather,  cooperating  with  them  on  the  basis  of 
a  common  Faith  and  Order,  to  discountenance  schism,  to 
heal  the  wounds  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  and  to  promote  the 
charity  which  is  the  chief  of  Christian  graces  and  the  visible 
manifestation  of  Christ  to  the  world  ; 

But,  furthermore,  we  do  hereby  afSrm  that  the  Christian 
unity  now  so  earnestly  desired  by  the  memorialists  can  be 


JVORD  AND   THE  CHURCH' S  ACT.  31 

restored  only  by  the  return  of  all  Christian  communions  to 
the  principles  of  unity  exemplified  by  the  undivided  Catholic 
Church  during  the  first  ages  of  its  existence  ;  which  princi- 
ples we  believe  to  be  the  substantial  deposit  of  Christian 
Faith  and  Order  committed  by  Christ  and  His  Apostles  to  the 
Church  unto  the  end  of  the  world,  and  therefore  incapable 
of  compromise  or  surrender  by  those  who  have  been  ordained 
to  be  its  stewards  and  trustees  for  the  common  and  equal 
benefit  of  all  men. 

As  inherent  parts  of  this  sacred  deposit,  and  therefore  as 
essential  to  the  restoration  of  unity  among  the  divided 
branches  of  Christendom,  we  account  the  following,  to  wit: 

1.  The  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  as 
the  revealed  word  of  God. 

2.  The  Nicene  Creed  as  the  sufficient  statement  of  the 
Christian  Faith. 

3.  The  two  Sacraments, — Baptism  and  the  Supper  of  the 
Lord, — ministered  with  unfailing  use  of  Christ's  words  of 
institution  and  of  the  elements  ordained  by  Him. 

4.  The  Historic  Episcopate,  locally  adapted  in  the  methods 
of  its  administration  to  the  varying  needs  of  the  nations  and 
peoples  called  of  God  into  the  unity  of  His  Church. 

Furthermore,  Deeply  grieved  by  the  sad  divisions  which 
affect  the  Christian  Church  in  our  own  land,  we  hereby  de- 
clare our  desire  and  readiness,  so  soon  as  there  shall  be  any 
authorized  response  to  this  Declaration,  to  enter  into  brotherly 
conference  with  all  or  any  Christian  Bodies  seeking  the  res- 
toration of  the  organic  unity  of  the  Church,  with  a  view  to 
the  earnest  study  of  the  conditions  under  which  so  priceless 
a  blessing  might  happily  be  brought  to  pass. 

I.  This  means,  first  of  all,  that  the  restored  unity 
must  rest  upon  an  institution,  as  Prof.  Shields 
says,  and  not  upon  a  doctrine.  There  must  be  an 
honest  regard  for  the  past  of  the  Church  and  an 


32  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

historical  connection  with  that  past.  Unless  we 
are  ready  to  assert  that  the  Roman  and  Eastern 
Churches  are  entirely  outside  the  pale  of  Christen- 
dom and  not  included  in  any  dream  or  hope  of 
Christian  unity,  we  are  compelled  to  hold  to  this 
historical  and  objective  continuity.  In  fact  the 
extreme  subjective  view  of  Christianity  is  a  denial 
of  the  idea  of  visible  unity. 

II.  The  Declaration  means  secondly  that  if 
Protestant  Christians  are  willing  to  modify  the 
extreme  view  of  the  Continental  Reformers  and 
agree  to  a  reasonable  recognition  of  the  desira- 
bility of  some  organic  connection  with  the  ancient 
and  the  Mediaeval  Church,  then  the  adoption  of 
the  Episcopate,  in  some  form  or  another,  is  both 
the  simolest  and  most  defensible  method  of  doino- 
it.  Without  questioning  the  authority,  or  valid- 
ity, or  fitness  ofotherforms  of  Church  government, 
it  will  at  least  be  admitted  that  that  institution 
bears  a  different  relation  to  the  present  and  past 
of  the  whole  of  Christendom  from  any  other  eccle- 
siastical polity.  It  is  simply  incredible  that  where 
there  is  any  genuine  enthusiasm  for  Christian 
unity,  there  could  be  any  proposition  seriously 
entertained  looking  to  the  abandonment  of  the 
only  form  of  organization  now  almost  universally 
agreed  upon  in  the  Christian  world.  As  there 
were  many  features  in  the  Episcopal  government 
of  the  Middle  Ages  that  seemed  to  the  Reformers 


IVOJiD  AND  THE  CHURCH  S  ACT.  33 

to  be  incompatible  with  its  true  spiritual  charac- 
ter; so,  doubtless,  to-day  there  are  customs  and 
precedents  in  the  administration  of  the  Episcopal 
office  that  we  inherited  from  England  and  that 
are  not  essential  to  it.  And  so  the  Bishops  speak 
of  "  the  Episcopate  locally  adapted  in  the  meth- 
ods of  its  administration  to  the  varying  needs  of 
nations  and  peoples."  Doubtless,  the  Episcopate, 
in  the  days  of  Cyprian,  when  the  average  jurisdic- 
tion of  a  Bishop  was  smaller  than  one  of  our  coun- 
ties, was  a  different  office  in  some  of  its  external 
aspects  from  what  it  is  to-day. 

III.  The  regulation  of  the  manner  and  matter 
of  Public  Worship  is  not  mentioned,  and  no  doc- 
trinal definition  of  the  meaning  and  value  of  the 
Sacraments  is  given,  or  any  form,  beyond  the 
words  of  institution  prescribed  for  their  adminis- 
tration. Of  course  this  means  absolutely  noth- 
ing except  as  an  hypothesis  for  the  sake  of  unity. 
It  justifies  no  private  experiments  on  the  part  of 
individual  Bishops  or  clergy,  and  it  involves  no 
diminution  of  reverence  for  the  teaching  and 
Offices  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  But  even 
as  a  tentative  proposition  it  exacts  of  Churchmen 
more  of  generous  sacrifice  both  of  preference  and 
conviction  than  the  agreement  to  the  whole 
Declaration  would  require  from  any  other  body 
of  Christian  people. 

To  denounce    this  Declaration  of  the  Bishops 


34  CHRISTIAN  UNITY—THE  MASTER'S 

as  a  sectarian  effort  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  to  absorb  other  Christian  denominations, 
or  to  look  upon  the  movement  as  anything  else 
than  unselfish,  generous,  and  full  of  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  is  to  confess  to  blind  prejudice  and  real 
indifference  to  the  reunion  of  the  Christian  world. 

Speaking  for  myself,  I  do  not  look  for  any  great 
and  immediate  results  from  the  movement.  The 
official  responses  that  have  been  made  to  the 
Declaration  so  far  are  not  specially  encouraging. 
The  largest  Protestant  body,  numerically,  in  the 
United  States,  has  declared  that  the  movement 
for  unity  is  both  impossible  and  undesirable — un- 
desirable because  a  variety  of  sects  will  best  en- 
courage that  spirit  of  competition  which  will  lead 
to  the  development  of  the  best  ideal  of  a  Chris- 
tian Church.  Some  of  the  most  prominent  min- 
isters {2uestio)i  of  Unity,  Bradford)  in  various 
denominations  have  published  statements  declar- 
ing that  the  adoption  of  the  episcopate  in  any 
form  means  simply  popery.  One  eminent  divine 
maintains  that  there  are  no  existing  creeds  or 
dogmas  upon  which  Christians  can  unite,  because 
they  do  not  even  agree  in  their  ideas  of  God,  and 
that  our  only  hope  is  a  communion  of  spiritual 
experience.     This  would  satisfy  Dr.  Martineau. 

One  very  able  Protestant  writer,  while  boldly 
contending  for  the  recognition  of  the  authority 
and  the  historical  continuity  of  the  visible  Catho- 


WORD  AMD  THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  35 

lie  Church,  and  striving  vainly  to  reconcile  it  with 
the  principles  of  Puritanism,  dismisses  Gore's 
statement  of  the  Anijlican  position  as  little  better 
than  Romanism  and  as  leaving  no  room  for  the 
development  of  the  apprehension  of  revealed 
truth.  It  would  have  been  fairer  to  take  no  sin- 
gle theologian,  however  high  his  reputation,  and 
to  judge  the  Anglican  Church  by  her  official  ut- 
terances, which  make  the  Catholic  Creeds,  the 
acts  of  the  four  Councils  and  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer  her  only  tests  of  orthodoxy. 

And,  finally,  the  Declaration  has  been  before 
the  world  for  nine  years  and  no  Christian  denom- 
ination has  yet  signified  its  willingness  to  make 
any  concession  whatever  to  meet  the  overtures 
of  the  Episcopal  Church. 

Is  then  the  hope  of  the  reunion  of  Christendom 
a  mere  "iridescent"  or  "spangled"  dream?  I 
cannot  believe  that.  The  words  of  our  Lord  and 
the  faith  of  the  Apostles  are  a  standing  rebuke  to 
such  scepticism.  The  triumphs  of  the  early 
Church  arc  a  warning  and  a  prophecy.  And  He 
who  taught  us  to  pray  "  Thy  kingdom  come " 
will  fulfil  Himself,  though  men  doubt  and  fail. 

It's  wiser  being  good  than  bad; 

It's  safer  being  meclc  than  fierc  •  ; 
It's  fitter  being  sane  than  mad; 

My  own  hope  is,  a  sun  will  pierce 
The  thickest  cloud  earth  ever  stretched; 


$6  CHRISTIAN  UNITY— THE  MASTER'S 

That  after  last  returns  the  first, 
Though  a  wide  compass  round  be  fetched; 
That  what  began  best  can't  end  worst, 
Nor  what  God  blessed  once  prove  accurst. 

Already  good  has  been  accomplished  by  the 
action  of  this  Church.  The  attention  of  many 
men  has  been  drawn  to  the  evil  of  our  divisions, 
and  Christians  have  been  forced  to  declare  them- 
selves on  those  points  which  they  regard  as  of 
sufficient  importance  to  be  made  a  bar  to  unity. 
We  cannot  but  believe  that  the  fair  and  candid 
examination  of  such  grounds  of  difference  will 
lead  at  least  to  an  increase  of  brotherly  charity 
and  intelligent  appreciation  of  one  another's 
motives  and  convictions. 

For  us  Churchmen  there  is  every  reason  to 
thank  God  that  one  more  manifest  token  has 
been  given  of  the  unique  and  significant  place 
that  our  own  Church  occupies  in  the  Christian 
world  ;  and  that  the  best  spirit  of  the  past  still 
survives  among  us.  Of  that  past  we  need 
not  be  ashamed.  It  is  a  story  of  struggle  from 
the  first  for  that  which  is  wise  and  moderate  and 
Catholic;  for  authority  without  tyranny  ;  for  lib- 
erty without  license.  Misconception  and  dis- 
trust have  ever  been  the  penalty  that  moderation 
pays  in  ages  of  fanaticism,  and  yet  in  the  long 
run  it  is  the  best  spirit  with  which  to  influence 
the  world. 


WORD  AND   THE  CHURCH'S  ACT.  37 

When  the  East  was  Arian,  and  when  the  B'shop 
of  Rome  had  compromised  the  Faith,  it  was  the 
Church  in  Britain  to  which  Athanasius  gave  his 
public  eulogium  for  its  constancy  to  the  Cathohc 
creed.  When  the  Roman  Church  was  swamped 
with  barbarian  invasion  and  enfeebled  by  hope- 
lessness and  internal  strife,  it  was  Britain  that  fur- 
nished men — men  of  brain,  and  men  of  faith — to 
convert  the  Northern  nations  and  to  endure  mar- 
tyrdom for  the  cause  of  Christ.  When  Karl  Mag- 
nus would  found  his  schools  and  lay  the  basis  of 
the  University  system  of  Europe,  it  was  the  Saxon 
Church  of  England  that  gave  him  the  men  of 
character  and  learning  fitted  for  so  great  an  en- 
terprise. When  the  ancient  constitutional  system 
of  the  Church  had  been  absorbed  into  the  Eccle- 
siastical Monocracy  of  Hildebrand  and  Innocent, 
it  was  the  English  Church  that  fought  for  and 
won  the  recognition  of  civil  and  religious  liberty 
in  Magna  Charta.  It  was  an  English  Churchman, 
William  of  Occam,  the  Master  of  Wiclif,  who 
taught  Luther  to  question  the  validity  of  the 
Papal  claims,  and  it  was  not  strange  that  that 
Church  which  had  done  so  much  and  suffered 
so  much  for  the  cause  of  constitutional  free- 
dom should  become  the  bulwark  of  the 
Reformation.  As  Stubbs  says  {Constitut.  Hist., 
i.  2O7).  "  The  English  clergy  in  the  early 
Norman  days  trained  the  English  people  for  the 


3  8  CHRIS  TIA  M  UNI  T  Y—  THE  MA  S  TER'  S 

time  when  the  kings  should  court  their  support, 
and  purchase  their  adherence  by  the  restoration 
of  hberties  that  would  otherwise  have  been  forgot- 
ten. The  unity  of  the  Church  was,  in  the  early 
period,  the  only  working  unity,  and  its  liberty  in 
the  evil  days  that  followed,  the  only  form  in  which 
the  traditions  of  the  ancient  freedom  lingered.  It 
was  again  to  be  the  tie  between  the  conquered 
and  the  conquerors,  to  give  to  the  oppressed  a 
hold  on  the  conscience  of  the  despot,  to  win  new 
liberties  and  revive  the  old  ;  to  unite  Norman  and 
Englishman  in  the  resistance  to  tyrants,  and  edu- 
cate the  growing  nation  for  its  distant  destiny  as 
the  teacher  and  herald  of  freedom  to  all  the 
world/' 

The  Puritans  owed  to  their  forefathers  in  the 
Church  of  England  whatever  was  right  and  true 
in  their  movement  as  an  effort  for  freedom,  just 
as  really  as  did  Bancroft  and  Laud  inherit  from 
the  same  mother  their  regard  for  authority  and 
law.  Whether  the  two  theories  of  religion, 
nursed  by  the  prejudices  of  ten  generations,  shall 
ever  be  reconciled  by  any  corporate  concession  it 
is  impossible  to  say.  To  some,  perhaps  to  many, 
the  unrestricted  right  of  private  judgment  and  in- 
dividual illumination,  as  irreconcilable  with  any 
organic,  historical  continuity,  or  deference  to  the 
decisions  and  traditions  of  the  past,  will  outweigh 
any   considerations  of  increased   power  and    effi- 


WORD  AND   THE  CHURCH' S  ACT.  39 

ciency  in  the  work  of  converting  the  world  to 
Christ.  Yet  it  is  an  honorable  distinction  to  this 
old  Church  of  the  English-speaking-  people  ;  an 
event  worthy  to  be  reckoned  with  the  noblest 
in  her  history— and  one  that  her  children  will 
rejoice  to  remember — that,  in  an  age  of  many-sided 
unbelief  and  scepticism,  she  was  brave  to  forget 
the  gloomy  controversies  and  the  bitter  detrac- 
tions of  the  past  three  hundred  years  and  to  send 
forth  a  message  of  peace  and  good-will  to  all  men 
and  women  in  all  the  world  who  love  the  Lord 
JESUS  Christ  in  sincerity  and  keep  His  word. 


^be  1bo(^  Scriptures  as  tbe  1Rule  anb 
•muimatc  Stanbar^  of  jfaitb. 


LECTURE  11. 

THE  REV.   CHARLES  W.   E.   BODY,  D.D.,   D.C.L., 

Professor  of  Old  Testament  Literature  and  Interpretation  in 

the  General  Theological  Seminary. 

THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS    THE  RULE 
AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH. 

Sanctify  (or  consecrate)  them  in  the  truth;  thy  word  is  truth. 
— St.  John  xvii.  7. 

First  amongst  the  articles  put  forth  on  the  sub- 
ject of  corporate  unity  by  the  American  House  of 
Bishops  at  Chicago  in  1886,  as  revised  and  adopted 
by  the  whole  Anglo-Catholic  Episcopate  at  Lam- 
beth in  i8S8,stands  the  followingon  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures: "  The  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  as  containing  all  things  necessary  to 
salvation,  and  as  being  the  rule  and  ultimate  stand- 
ard of  faith." 

This  article,  with  the  three  others  which  fol- 
low, according  to  the  careful  language  of  the 
collective  Episcopate,  "  supply  a  basis  on  which 
approach  may  be  by  God's  blessing  made  towards 
Home  Reunion."   A  basis  upon  which  approach  to 


44         THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THt.  RULE 

reunion  may  be  made  ;  that  is  to  say,  these  articles 
represent  the  fundamental  elements  of  the  Church's 
organic  life.  They  contain  the  Catholic  minima, 
without  any  one  of  which  the  full  conception  of 
the  organic  life  of  the  Catholic  Church  can,  under 
no  circumstances,  be  adequately  realized.  They 
embody  the  germinal  positions  from  which  the 
other  parts  of  Catholic  faith,  discipline,  and  prac- 
tice have  in  all  ages  been  nurtured  and  developed ; 
and  from  which,  therefore,  when  loyally  and  intel- 
ligently apprehended  in  this  fundamental  relation- 
ship, the  numerous  other  important  matters  which 
corporate  reunion  would  necessarily  involve 
may,  by  God's  blessing,  be  hopefully  approached 
and  considered.  If,  in  the  case  of  any  religious  body, 
the  full,  intelligent  acceptance  of  any  one  of  these 
positions  be  lacking,  that  religious  body  is  not 
yet,  in  our  judgment,  prepared  hopefully  to  "  ap- 
proach the  subject  of  Corporate  Unity  "  from  the 
standpoint  of  historic  Christianity.  Hence  such 
a  body  necessarily  lacks  the  intellectual  and  spir- 
itual environment  required  for  the  consideration 
of  the  further  questions  involved,  with  any  hop3 
of  a  successful  result.  In  other  words,  the  Angli- 
can Bishops  have  striven  to  act  as  skilful  physic 
cians  of  souls  in  this  matter.  In  all  loving  and 
single-hearted  directness  they  have  endeavored 
to  concentrate  the  devout  consideration  of  Chris- 
tians of  every  name  upon  those  fundamental  posi- 


AND   ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      45 

tions  in  a  defective  apprehension  of  which  the 
root  and  source  of  our  present  evils  is  ultimate)}' 
to  be  found.  Passing  by  for  the  time  the  multi- 
form symptoms  of  the  disease  which  in  their  ex-- 
ternal  and  shifting  characteristics  are  obvious  to 
every  careful  observer,  they  have  concentrated  at- 
tention upon  the  vital  organs  of  the  organic  body 
of  the  Church's  lif-%  hidden  in  some  one  or  more 
of  which  the  central  seat  of  so  grave  a  disease 
must  necessarily  be  sought.  We  shall  do  well, 
therefore,  beloved,  in  this  course  of  Lectures,  to 
consider  attentively  these  several  fundamental 
articles,  and,  so  far  as  we  may,  lovingl)/  to  in- 
vite all  other  Christian  people  to  do  the  same,  in 
the  devout  and  reasonable  expectation  that  we 
may  all  thus  obtain  a  fuller  and  more  living  con- 
ception of  the  fundamental  position  of  each  in  the 
development  of  the  Church's  corporate  life;  and  so 
may,  by  God's  blessing,  perceive  and  correct  the 
diseased  conditions  which  our  partial  and  misdi- 
rected apprehension  of  such  fundamental  matters 
must  inevitably  cause.  For  beyond  all  doubt 
the  present  divided  state  of  our  English-speaking 
Christianity  (to  go  no  further  afield  in  our  enquiry) 
does  represent  a  diseased  condition  of  things,  and 
one  entirely  inconsistent  with  the  ideally  healthy 
life  of  the  Christian  Church.  It  is  therefore  the 
plain  duty  of  all  to  track  up  and  investigate  the 
cause  of  such  an  unhealthy  condition,  so  far  as  it 


46         THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

exists  within  their  own  bounds.  Thus  used,  the 
Chicag-o-Lambeth  Articles  may  indeed  prepare  the 
way  for  the  great  blessing  of  visible  unity  which 
we  are  seeking  from  the  hand  of  the  Lord,  from 
Whose  hand  alone  it  can  finally  come.  Viewed 
in  any  other  light ;  not  as  initially  fruitful  and. fun- 
damental positions,  from  which  when  attained 
we  and  our  brethren  may  together  seek  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Blessed  Spirit  in  the  further  considera- 
tion of  whatever  matters  may  yet  remain,  but  as 
hard,  mechanical  conditions  of  reunion,  which 
when  once  accepted  would  leave  nothing  further 
to  be  considered;  these  Articles,  so  far  from  help- 
ing on  unity,  may  indeed  be  turned  into  a  fresh 
barrier  in  the  way  of  its  speedy  accomplishment. 

Again  and  again,  in  conferences  which  have 
been  held  on  this  matter,  it  has  been  quite  rightly 
urged,  and  that  not  chiefly  by  representatives  of 
our  own  Communion,  that  the  Church  can  never 
afford  to  overlook  the  teachings  of  the  past  Chris- 
tian centuries.  Certainly,  no  large  body  of  Catho- 
lic Bishops,  like  that  assembled  at  Lambeth  in 
1888,  could  for  one  moment  have  entertained  the 
idea  of  neglecting  the  lessons  of  the  well-nigh 
sixteen  Christian  centuries  which  intervene  be- 
tween us  and  the  first  promulgation  of  the  Nicene 
Creed.  The  Chicago-Lambeth  Declaration  cer- 
tainly means  nothingof  the  kind.  Not  even  from 
the  Nicene  standpoint  could  the  Declaration  be 


AND   ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      47 

considered  approximately  complete,  nor  was  it  in- 
tended so  to  be.  To  say  nothing  of  the  other 
Sacramental  Rites  of  the  Church,  which  are  com- 
plementary to  and  issue  from  the  two  great  central 
Sacraments  of  the  Gospel,  we  need  recall  only  the 
great  outlines  which  underlie  all  Eucharistic  Of- 
fices wheresoever  found — East  and  West  and  North 
and  South — under  every  possible  outward  diver- 
gency of  form  and  ritual,  to  see  how  momentous  are 
the  matters  which  lie  outside  the  terms  of  the  Bish- 
ops' Declaration.  Looked  at  from  the  position 
which  they  themselves  avow,  that  they  are  now  put- 
ting forth  only  such  matters  as  "supply  a  basis  upon 
which  approach  may  be,  by  God's  blessing,  hope- 
fully made  "  towards  full  corporate  unity,  all  is 
clear  and  plain.  Complete  unification  presupposes 
a  process  of  organic  growth  like  that  which  Dr. 
Shields  has  so  well  portrayed  in  his  recent  most 
timely  and  valuable  contribution  to  the  subject, 
entitled  The  United  Church  of  the  United 
States.  Viewed  from  any  other  standpoint  than 
that  which  the  Bishops  themselves  avow,  it  is 
hard  to  conceive  how  such  a  declaration  could 
have  been  issued  by  any  body  of  Catholic  Bishops. 
To  sum  up  then  concisely  the  position  for  which  I 
am  contending.  The  loving  counsel  of  the  Bishops 
to  all  who  seek  for  the  full  accomplishment  of  our 
dear  Lord's  purpose  in  the  visible  reunion  of  Chris- 
tians (whether  belonging  to  their  own  Commun- 


48        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

ion  or  not)  is  this  :  In  order  hopefully  to  approach 
the  subject,  we  must  each  and  all  be  content  to  let 
our  present  positions  pass,  for  the  time  being-,  out 
of  sight.      We  must  look  back  down  the  stream 
of  Christian  history  till  at  last  we  find  ourselves 
in  the  actual  presence  of  the  Church's  still  undi- 
vided organic  life.     Thus  only  can  we  impartially 
learn  and  consider  the  Divine  provision  by  which 
in  a  sinful  separatist  world  that  unity  was  so  long 
conserved  and  protected.      This  Divine  provision 
will   be   found    to    centre    in   four   fundamental 
and    germinal    factors.      To    these    factors,   we 
should  give,  in  the  first  place,  our  fullest  and  un- 
divided attention.     As  soon  as  by  God's  mercy  we 
have  reached  a  vital   unity  of    apprehension   in 
regard  to  these  four  fundamental  factors,  we  may 
then  each  and    all   press    forward  with  a  good 
hope  to  examine  from  the  position  thus  gained 
whatever  matters  may  still  remain — the  further 
questions  as  to   which    there  are  difficulties    to 
be     solved,   differences    to   be    harmonized,    de- 
ficiencies to  be  made  good,  or  still  richer  spiritual 
possessions    to    be    acquired    for   the    doing    of 
Christ's  work  in  the  world. 

It  is  then  from  the  position  thus  outhned  that  the 
lecturer  invites  your  attention  to-day  to  his  allot- 
ted subject — the  relation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  to 
the  restoration  of  visible  Church  unity.  We  are  to 
consider  hov/  we  can  best  use  the  great  fact  that, 


AND   ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      49 

thank  God,  the  voices  of  Prophets  and  Apostles 
and  of  the  Lord  Himself  do  still  sound  forth 
in  every  part  of  our  divided  Christendom  to  enable 
us  most  efficiently  to  combat  the  evils  we  still  de- 
plore. Thus  regarded,  the  subject  will,  I  trust, 
approve  itself  as  alike  inviting  and  suggestive.  A 
cursory  examination  of  the  literature  which  has 
from  time  to  time  appeared  upon  the  subject  of 
Reunion  will  reveal  the  fact  that  this  Arti- 
cle of  the  Lambeth  Declaration  has,  perhaps  not 
unnaturally,  at  first  been  approached  in  a  some- 
what limited  and  external  way.  We  shall  find  in 
almost  every  case  that  it  has  received  a  very 
inadequate  treatment.  Evidently  to  the  minds  of 
many  who  have  written  and  thought  upon  the  sub- 
ject, as  there  was  likely  to  be  no  great  obstacle 
to  the  general  acceptance  of  this  Article,  nothing 
more  need  be  said  on  the  matter.  Clearly,  how- 
ever, a  truer  position  may  be  found.  Starting  to- 
gether from  the  momentous  fact  of  the  common 
general  acceptance  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  how 
may  we  best  use  that  great  spiritual  weapon  for 
overthrowing  the  barriers  which  still  remain  in  our 
path  .-•  Unquestionably  the  Divine  Library  of 
Holy  Scripture  was  not  entrusted  to  our  care  sim- 
ply to  be  labelled  "accepted"  on  the  outside 
cover,  but  must  be  actively  used  for  the  healing 
of  moral  evils,  whether  in  the  individual  sphere, 
or,  as  in  the  case  before  us,  in  the  corporate  life  of 


50        THE  HOL  V  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

the  Church.  The  inquiry  which  is  thus  opened 
before  us  is  of  great  practical  moment.  It  will 
reveal  a  sphere  for  immediate  and  fruitful  effort. 
It  may  disclose  new  possibilities  of  hope  for  even 
the  smallest  and  most  insignificant  fragment  of 
the  wounded  body  of  Christ. 

A  glance  at  the  text,  a  id  at  the  High-Priestly 
prayer  of  our  Lord  for  the  Church  from  which 
it  is  taken,  will  sufficiently  show  that  the  view  of 
the  relation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  to  organic 
unity  above  enunciated  lies  firmly  imbedded  in 
the  fundamental  teachings  of  Holy  Writ  itself. 
We  notice  that  our  Lord  here  prays,  first,  for  the 
Apostles  and  original  disciples  who  were  the  fruit 
of  His  own  earthly  ministry,  and  secondly  (the 
transition  being  clearly  marked  at  v.  2o),  for  all 
the  subsequent  generations  of  Christians  who  shall 
believe  on  Him  through  the  Apostolic  message 
handed  down  in  the  Church.  We  note  also 
that  in  each  case  we  have  a  two-fold  petition. 
Primarily,  that  within  the  sphere  of  the  Revela- 
tion which  the  Lord  has  made,  the  disciples 
may  be  kept  by  the  Father  in  an  evil  world 
true  and  faithful  to  their  high  mission,  even  as 
the  Lord  Himself  had  kept  them  in  the  days  of 
His  flesh — and  then,  flowing  out  of  this  primary 
petition,  we  have  the  prayer  that,  so  kept,  they 
may  exhibit  in  the  world  a  supernatural  unity  like 
unto  the  unity  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  itself,  to  be 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITIT.      51 

an  abiding  and  convincing  proof  of  the  reality  of 
our  Lord's  Divine  mission.  Men,  as  they  be- 
hold that  unity,  will  instinctively  recognize  that  a 
phenomenon  so  marvellous,  a  victory  over  the 
separating  tendencies  of  the  world  so  lasting  and 
complete,  can  have  its  source  in  no  mere  effort  of 
our  poor  sinful  humanity,  but  is  conclusive  evi- 
dence of  the  presence  in  the  life  of  regenerate  men 
of  a  new  and  potent  Divine  factor,  the  abiding  re- 
sult of  our  Lord's  mission  to  the  world.  We  no- 
tice also  that  the  connection  between  the  primary 
and  the  resultant  petition  is  strongly  emphasized. 
The  first  is  stated  as  the  necessary  foundation  for 
the  second.  Only  by  a  Divine  protection,  by 
keeping  men  within  the  fertilizing  power  tf  the 
Revelation  already  fully  made,  can  believers  go 
on  to  realize  in  the  world  the  unity  for  which  our 
Lord  thus  prays. 

Hence  we  understand  the  emphatic  insistence 
with  which  our  Lord  affirms  the  absolute  finality 
of  the  Revelation  of  the  Divine  Nature  and  char- 
acter which  lie  had  now,  in  Mis  own  Person, fully 
made.  "  1  glorified  thee  on  the  earth,  having  ac- 
complished the  work  which  thou  hast  given  me  to 
do.  .  .  .  This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  should  know 
thee  the  only  true  God,  and  him  whom  thou  didst 
send,  even  Jesus  Christ."  Proceeding  yet  one  step 
further  in  our  Lord's  thought,  we  see  how  this 
Revelation  made  in  human  flesh  by  the  Eternal 


52        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

Son,  adequate  as  it  is  for  the  spiritual  needs  of 
all  peoples  for  all  time,  yet  becomes  the  actual 
possession  of  the  race  only  through  the  ministry 
of  the  Apostles  themselves,  who  are  the  subject 
of  an  eternal  Divine  election  and  choice.  "  I  mani- 
fested thy  name  unto  the  men  which  thou  gavest 
me  out  of  the  world:  thine  they  were,  and  thou 
gavest  them  to  me.  ...  I  have  given  them  thy 
word."  Further,  this  Divine  selection  of  the 
Apostolate  has  already  begun  to  fulfil  its  destined 
end.  "  They  have  kept  thy  word."  Hence  for 
these  elect  ones,  the  chosen  repositories  of  this 
selfsame  message  of  the  Father,  the  Lord  prays 
that  in  nothing  the  Revelation  entrusted  to  their 
care  may  sustain  harm  or  hindrance.  "  I  pray  for 
them,  .  .  .  for  those  whom  thou  gavest  me.  .  .  . 
Holy  Father,  keep  them  in  thy  name  which  thou 
hast  given  me.  .  ,  .  While  I  was  with  them,  I  kept 
them  in  thy  name  which  thou  hast  given  me.  .  .  . 
But  now  I  come  to  thee.  ...  I  pray  not  that 
thou  shouldest  take  them  from  the  world,  but 
that  thou  shouldest  keep  them  from  the  evil  one." 
Thus  divinely  guarded  from  hurtful  and  an- 
tagonistic influences,  the  Divine  message  which  the 
Apostles  have  themselves  received  in  all  its  un- 
dimmed  purity  directly  from  the  Son  of  God  will 
enable  them  for  their  world-wide  mission.  In 
its  power  they  will  advance  to  an  adequate  sense 
and  apprehension  of  the  full  meaning  of  their  Di- 


AND   ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      ^ 

vine  vocation  for  the  uplifting  of  the  race.  Nay, 
they  will  become  partakers  of  the  eternal  mission 
of  the  Son  of  God  Himself.  Their  work,  like  His, 
will  be  lifted  far  above  the  mere  temporal  circum- 
stances of  the  age  and  environments  in  which  it  was 
in  time  accomplished.  Like  the  great  acts  of  the 
Son  Himself,  the  Apostolic  embodiment  of  the 
Divine  Portraiture  in  the  actual  tongues  of  men 
becomes  an  eternal  and  undying  power;  a  thing 
done  in  time,  yet  abiding  unchanged  for  all  time; 
a  message  in  its  essence  supramundane,  the  true 
and  faithful  portraiture  of  the  living  message  of 
the  Father,  the  very  Word  of  God,  who  hath  Him- 
self tabernacled  amongst  men.  Hence  we  hear 
those  wondrous  words  fall  from  the  sacred  lips  : 
"  They  are  not  of  the  world,  even  as  lam  not  of  the 
world.  Consecrate  them  i-.i  the  truth  :  thy  word 
is  truth.  As  thou  didst  send  me  into  the  world, 
even  so  sent  I  them  into  the  world.  .  .  .  For  their 
sakesi  consecrate  myself,  that  they  themselves  also 
may  be  consecrated  in  truth."  Further,  the  Di- 
vine message  thus  embodied  in  the  Apostolic  teach- 
in?  is  itself  the  truth — a  revelation  of  the  reality 
which  underlies  all  being  and  all  life — something 
entirely  independent  of  the  knowledge  that  man 
may  painfully  acquire  for  himself,  cither  by  the  ob- 
servance of  physical  sequence,  or  of  the  little  world 
of  human  nature,  or  of  the  laws  of  human  society 
as  seen  in  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  race.     All 


54        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

these  things  may  and  do  lead  men  towards  the 
truth  ;  they  may  and  do  illustrate  it,  when  it  has 
been  first  received  by  them;  they  may  and  do 
modify  the  method  of  its  application  to  their 
various  and  changing  needs;  but  in  its  essence  the 
Divine  message  remains  always  and  unchangeably 
the  same,  having  its  foundations  forever  laid  not  in 
the  shifting  and  changeful  vortex  ofhuman  thought 
and  speculation,  but  in  the  eternal  and  changeless 
realities  of  the  unveiled  world  of  God. 

Thus  we  come  to  see  the  full  intention  and  pur- 
pose of  this  Divine  treasure  in  the  ultimate  prayer 
which  our  Lord  offers  for  its  Apostolic  reposi- 
tories. It  was  to  become  in  the  Apostles  them- 
selves an  effectual  centre  of  unity,  subjecting  and 
making  subservient  to  its  fuller  manifestation 
whatever  differing  types  of  moral  character,  of 
intellectual  development,  of  hereditary  bent  or  re- 
sulting environment  were  to  be  found  amongst  the 
members  of  the  Apostolic  band;  uniting  into  one 
free  Divine  harmony  the  various  key-notes  in 
which  were  pitched  the  utterances  of  a  St.  Peter  or 
a  St.  John,  of  a  St.  Paul  or  a  St.  James.  Thus  in 
the  vital  unbroken  unity  of  the  Apostolic  band  was 
laid  a  firm  foundation  for  the  subsequent  corpor- 
ate unity  of  the  Church  of  all  time.  "  Holy  Father, 
keep  them  in  thy  name  which  thou  hast  given 
me,  that  they  may  be  one,  even  as  we  are."  No 
words  could  more  emphatically  reveal  the  heaven- 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      55 

ly.supramunclane  source  of  the  unity  of  the  origin- 
al Apostolate,  It  was  the  reflection  of  a  heavenly 
pattern  eternally  existing  in  the  Being  of  God — 
"  Oiie  as  we  are,"  It  was  the  result  of  a  Divine 
protection,  in  the  sphere  of  the  Revelation  which 
the  Lord  had  Himself  brought  from  heaven  to 
eirth.  The  unity  of  the  Church  is  thus  a  Divine 
and  heavenly  thing — a  result  of  the  ultimate  mani- 
festation of  God  in  human  flesh — **  something  let 
down  into  this  lesser  world  from  a  higher  plane 
of  existence.  Up  above  in  the  upper  air  is  its 
spring  and  its  source."  The  mysteries  of  God 
had  been  actually  manifested  in  the  facts  of  hu- 
man life;  and  the  result  of  this  manifestation,  as 
apprehended  under  the  illumination  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit,  was  to  lift  above  the  selfishness,  mists  and 
limitations  of  earth  into  the  realization  of  a  supreme 
and  heavenly  unity  of  Truth,  a  unity  in  which 
each  several  endowment  and  faculty  of  man  would 
find  at  once  its  harmonious  and  its  fruitful  devel- 
opment. In  the  vital  unity  of  the  Apostolate, 
growing  out  of  the  uniqueness  of  the  Revelation 
made  in  the  Person  of  the  Lord,  built  up  under 
the  overshadowing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Eternal 
Vicar  of  Christ  on  earth,  was  given  at  onc^  the 
pledge  and  the  foundation  of  the  subsequent  unity 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  No  trace  is  to  be  found, 
in  this  fundamental  teaching  of  our  Lord  Him- 
self upon  the   express    subject   of  the  Church's 


56        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

unity,  of  any  exclusive  function  of  St.  Peter 
in  the  matter,  or  of  the  continuance  of  any  such 
function  in  the  succession  of  the  Bishops  of 
Rome  as  the  necessary  g-uardians  of  the  Church's 
unity.  Here,  if  anywhere,  in  this  locus  classicus 
of  all  Scripture  on  the  subject  of  unity,  we  should 
expect  some  declaration  from  our  Lord  on  a  mat- 
ter so  vitally  momentous  to  all  subsequent  ages. 
Yet  not  only  do  we  find  no  hint  of  such  a  dogma, 
but  we  have  the  express  implication  of  the  con- 
trary. The  message  which  the  Eternal  Son  had 
brought  to  earth  had  become  for  all  subsequent 
time  the  message  of  the  whole  Apostolic  band. 
All  future  believers  must  accept  it  as  "  their  mes- 
sage," and  for  all  such  our  Lord  prays  that,  as  the 
natural  and  normal  result  of  this  acceptance,  they 
too  may  be  one,  after  the  same  Divine  and  heav- 
enly pattern  as  was  seen  in  the  primal  unity  of  the 
Apostles  themselves.  The  Roman  theory  of 
mechanical  unity,  through  the  unquestioning  ac- 
ceptance of  the  decrees  of  an  infallible  successor 
of  St.  Peter,  rests  upon  conceptions  absolutely  for- 
eign to  the  mind  of  our  Blessed  Lord,  as  that  mind 
is  in  this  Gospel  laid  open  before  us.  Of  one  thing 
we  may  be  well  assured.  Whensoever  in  God's  good 
time  the  wounds  of  His  Church  shall  be  healed 
and  her  corporate  unity  restored,  thatgreat  blessing 
will  be  vouchsafed  to  men  upon  the  principles  here 
enunciated  by  the  Supreme    Bishop  and    Pastor 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH,      57 

of  Souls.  It  will  never  be  realized  upon  the  basis 
of  mechanical  submission  to  a  power  which  in  its 
tyrannous  and  unlawful  usurpation  of  functions 
entrusted  by  our  Lord  to  the  whole  Apostolic 
college,  and  (so  far  as  they  could  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  be  transmitted)  to  their  successors  in 
the  collective  Episcopate  throughout  the  world, 
has  ever  been  the  fruitful  source  of  discord  and 
schisms.  God  hasten  the  day  when  the  great 
Latin  Patriarchate  shall  no  longer  cling  to  claims 
built  up  on  unstable  foundations  of  fraudulent 
history  and  wrested  Scripture  ;  but,  discarding 
these  legacies  of  the  past  which  hide  from  the 
world  her  true  glory,  may  stand  forth,  as  in  ancient 
times,  the  most  powerful  upholder  of  the  authority 
of  the  teaching  of  the  collective  Apostolate,  the 
centre  of  world-wide  Christian  intercourse  and 
fellowship,  in  which  the  Apostolic  tradition  is 
most  surely  and  fully  conserved.  The  Lord  in 
His  good  time  hasten  that  glorious  day.  The 
Lord  bless  abundantly  all  who  in  that  great 
Communion  are  praying  and  working  for  that 
magnificent  ideal.  Meanwhile  our  own  path  of  duty 
is  plain  and  clear.  In  the  midst  of  a  divided  Chris- 
tianity, confronted  still  by  the  same  yoke  of  Papal 
absolutism  against  which  our  fathers  struggled, 
but  which,  alas,  in  these  latter  days  wears  an  ac- 
centuated and  emphatic  form  unknown  in  their 
time,  it  is  our  high  vocation  and  privilege  to  pro- 


58        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

claim  as  the  true  source  of  unity  in  the  Church 
that  message  of  the  collective  Apostolate  to  which 
our  Lord  here  appeals.  Those  living  authori- 
tative voices  sound  forth  unceasingly  in  the  Cath- 
olic Church  under  the  teaching  of  the  ever- 
present  Spirit,  in  the  Apostolic  writings  of  the 
New  Testament.  To  the  later  Church,  too,  has 
been  given  the  glory  of  a  Divine  indwelling  to 
apply  rightly  the  Divine  fountain  of  Apostolic 
truth  to  the  various  needs  of  the  Church's  life. 
"The  glory  which  thou  hast  given  me  I  have  given 
unto  them  "  (the  reference  is  to  subsequent  genera- 
tions of  believers)  to  the  end  that  *'  they  may  be 
one,  even  as  we  are  one  ;  I  in  them,  and  thou  in 
me,  that  they  may  be  perfected  into  one  ;  that 
the  world  may  know  that  thou  didst  send  me, 
and  lovedst  them,  even  as  thou  lovedst  me." 

The  conception  that  the  corporate  unity  of  the 
Church  was  thus  really  established  in  the  days  of 
the  Apostles  themselves,  and  that  subsequent  di- 
visions are  consequently  primarily  due  to  the  dis- 
regard of  Apostolic  authority  and  to  declension 
from  Apostolic  teaching  and  example,  derives 
much  greater  power  and  force  from  the  results 
of  recent  historical  investigation  in  regard  to 
the  actual  character  of  the  Apostolic  age.  We 
had  been  accustomed  for  the  most  part  to  apply 
to  the  whole  period  of  Apostolic  ministry  the 
same  picture  of  unbroken  peace  and  unity  which 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      59 

is  given  in  the  book  of  the  Acts,  of  the  early 
days  of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  when  the  glory  of 
the  first  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  tabernacling 
in  the  Body  of  the  Lord  was  yet  undimmed. 
But  the  critical  investigatio  1  of  the  last  half-cen- 
tury (much  of  it  at  the  time  hostile,  exaggerated, 
and  distorted)  has  in  its  final  outcome  given  us 
a  vivid  portraiture  of  the  Apostolic  founders  of 
the  Church  far  more  Scriptural,  far  more  true  to 
fact  and  to  history,  than  this  idyllic  dream  of  our 
earlier  fancy.  To  quote  from  one  of  the  greatest 
living  teachers  of  our  Communion  :  "As  we  now 
study  the  Apostolic  records  afresh,"  he  says,  "  we 
see  those  master-builders  at  their  work.  No  easy, 
heaven-born  task  this  of  theirs.  Things  do  not 
slide  into  their  places,  nor  come  together  at  a 
rapid  word.  No,  we  see  these  men  toiling  as  we 
might  toil,  doubting  as  we  doubt,  jarring  as  we  jar  ; 
stumbling,  hesitating,  disheartened,  distressed, 
beaten,  baffled,  yet  still  laboring,  still  carried 
through,  still  moving  towards  the  goal.  .  .  .  The 
Church  of  Christ  .  .  .  did  not  start  up  as  in  a  night 
like  some  magical  palace, without  the  sound  of  saw 
or  axe  or  hammer.  Nay,  indeed,  the  noise  of  the 
stone-yard  is  busy  about  us  as  this  temple  of  God 
is  raised  course  by  course.  With  effort,  with 
struggle,  under  pressure,  in  hot  argument,  in 
anxious  uncertainty,  in  dreary  disappointment,  in 
weary  delays,  in  crucial  agonies,  stone  is  laid  to 


6o        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

stone,  and  beam  to  beam.  The  victory  of  the 
Spirit  proves  its  mastery,  not  by  selecting  its  own 
conditions,  but  by  achieving  its  aims  through  the 
conditions  made  for  it  in  human  history."  Read 
your  Acts  and  Epistles  again  in  the  light  of  such 
a  book  as  Dr.  Hort's  Judaistic  CJiriitianity,  the 
work  of  perhaps  the  greatest  authority  on  this  spe- 
cial subject  in  Christendom — one  but  the  other  day 
removed  from  us  by  death — and  you  will  see  that 
this  picture  is  in  no  way  overdrawn. 

The  history  of  the  Apostolic  age  depicts  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  unification  of  the  Church  in 
spite  of  obstacles  far  greater  than  any  which  can 
ever  again  confront  her,  and  in  the  face  of  barriers 
which  stretched  back  into  an  immemorial  past,  and 
claimed  with  real  though  partial  truth  the  sanc- 
tion of  an  actual  Divine  institution.  The  problem 
before  the  Apostolic  age  was  not,  as  now,  to  re- 
unite Christians  severed  by  differences  compara- 
tively recent  and  secondary  in  their  nature,  de- 
riving all  their  unhappy  force  from  mere  human 
insistence  and  the  prescription  of,  at  the  most,  a 
few  centuries.  The  task  before  the  Apostles  was  a 
far  different  one.  Theirs  it  was  to  create  a  united 
Christendom  out  of  elements  the  most  discordant, 
severed  by  barriers  and  animosities  of  age-long 
duration.  They  struggled  to  unite  in  a  vital  har- 
mony of  polity,  thought,  and  action,  the  Jewish 
Christians  who  continued  to  enforce  the  painful 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      6i 

physical  rite  of  circumcision  upon  their  own  race  (a 
large  section  of  whom  desired  to  make  this  compul- 
sory upon  all  Christians,  whether  of  Jewish  descent 
or  not),  and  the  converts  from  the  heathen  peoples 
with  their  various  and  differing  racial  characteris- 
tics, diversities  of  thought,  language,  and  cus- 
toms, all  alike  fundamentally  severed  from  the 
Jews  by  an  age-long  preparation  for  the  Gos- 
pel peculiar  to  themselves,  of  a  kind  absolutely 
alien,  foreign  and  incomprehensible  to  God's 
ancient  people.  The  task,  moreover,  was  almost 
indefinitely  complicated  by  the  existence  of  a 
world-wide  Jewish  dispersion,  which  brought  the 
two  conflicting  elements  into  close  juxtaposition 
in  whatever  place  a  church  was  founded,  and  gave 
scope  for  abundant  dissension  and  misrepresenta- 
tion in  every  Christian  centre.  How  great  was 
the  agony  of  the  tension  that  St.  Paul  endured  in 
his  life-long  conflict  for  the  unity  of  the  Church  on 
the  one  side,  and  for  the  Catholicity  which  in- 
sured to  the  heathen  Christians  an  equal  posi- 
tion with  the  Jews  in  the  Church  of  God  on 
the  other,  we  can  read  between  the  lines  of  his 
Epistles.  The  point  I  wish  now  to  emphasize  is, 
that  this  creation  of  a  united  Catholic  Church 
in  spite  of  such  stupendous  obstacles  was  the 
common  work  of  all  the  Apostles,  energized  by 
the  power  of  a  common  faith,  inspired  by  one  and 
the   same    Eternal    Spirit.     It   was    not   brought 


62        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

about  by  conciliar  decrees  merely,  for  nothing  is 
more  clear  than  that  the  Apostolic   decision  at 
Jerusalem  was  relative  strictly  to  but  one  special 
crisis  of  the  history,  and,  save  in  the  spirit  it  ex- 
pressed, had  but   little   directly  to  do  with  the 
subsequent   course   of  events.     The   conciliatory 
spirit  of  a  St.  James;  the  spiritual  discernment  of 
a  St.  Peter,  quickened  as  it  had  been  at  the  out- 
set by  special  supernatural  enlightenment  in  the 
matter  of  the  Gentile  Cornelius;  the  deep  grasp 
of  the  meaning  of  our  Lord's  Work  and  Person 
in  its  relation  to  this  special  matter  possessed  by 
St.  Paul,  coupled  as  it  was  in  his  case  with  an  al- 
most   boundless    affection    for    his    countrymen 
after  the  flesh  ;  these  and  such  as  these  were  the 
factors    which    preserved   the  vital   unity    of  the 
Apostolate   itself    under    the   terrible    strain    to 
which  that  unity  was  then   exposed,  and  so  made 
this  very  unity  efficacious  throughout  the   length 
and  breadth  of  the  Roman  world  for  building  up  a 
homogeneous  and  harmonious  Christendom.     In 
that   first    unique   period   of  little   more   than   a 
quarter  of  a  century  which  witnessed  the   crea- 
tion and  consolidation  of  a  Catholic  Church,  vic- 
torious over  all  barriers  of  privilege,  race,  heredity, 
wealth,    power,    custom,    and    environment,    the 
great    High-Priestly   prayer  of  the  Son  of   God 
received   its   unique    fulfilment,  a  fulfilment   the 
sisrnificance    of  which    can   never    be    exhausted. 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      dT, 

The  vital  unity  of  the  Apostolate,  which  had  its 
root  in  the  power  of  the  common  faith,  approved 
itself  as  superior  to  every  opposing'  influence 
which  could  be  massed  against  it.  The  unity  of 
the  Apostolate  became  the  source  and  the  strength 
of  the  corresponding  supernatural  unity  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 

The  more  vividly  then  that  we  realize  the  real 
splendor  of  that  first  typical  victory  of  the  unity 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  over  all  separating  barriers, 
the  better  shall  we  understand  the  power  of  the 
authoritative  message  of  the  united  Apostolate  to 
conserve  the  unity  thus  initially  won.  Now  as 
ever  the  Church  is  built  upon  the  foundation  of 
the  Apostles  and  Prophets.  The  voices  of  the 
Prophets  heralding  the  coming  kingdom,  interpret- 
ing for  us  the  lessons  of  the  ancient  preparatory 
dispensation,  were  ratified  and  gathered  up  into  a 
living  unity  in  the  Person  and  Work  of  the  Lord. 
The  voice  of  the  Lord  sounds  forth  in  the  Church 
in  the  message  of  the  united  Apostolate.  Age  by 
age  the  Church  sits  as  a  learner  at  the  feet  of  this 
band  of  authoritative  teachers,  whose  living  ora- 
cles are  still  efficient  for  the  dissolving  of.  each 
separating  tendency  which  threatens  to  mar  the  Di- 
vine unity  of  the  Body  of  Christ.  The  authority 
of  the  Apostolate,  ministered  through  their  living 
words  and  deeds,  yet  growing  ever  stronger  and 
more  dear  through  the  adhesion  of  each  succes- 


64        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

sive  Christian  age,  should  have  been  adequate  to 
conserve  the  Church's  unity.  Now  that,  owing 
to  a  partial  disregard  of  that  authority,  this  unity 
has  been  so  grievously  marred  in  its  outward  and 
corporate  manifestation,  to  no  other  source  can  we 
go  that  is  competent  to  restore  the  ancient  desola- 
tions of  the  supernatural  structure.  The  words  of 
the  great  African  Father,  St.  Augustine  of  Hippo, 
uttered  fourteen  centuries  ago  in  reference  to  the 
powerful  Puritan  separatists  of  his  own  day,  are 
equally  true  and  equally  suggestive  in  our  present 
difficulties.  In  this  conflict  "  nothing  conquers 
but  the  truth  ;  the  victory  of  truth  is  love."  Or 
again,  "  Why,  brethren,  is  it  that  we  find  it  so  dif- 
ficult to  be  at  one?  Because  men  contend  from 
the  earthly  standpoint,  because  they  will  to  be  but 
earth,  earthy."  For  this  the  great  teacher  can  see 
but  one  remedy :  "Let  us,  therefore,  lift  up  our 
eyes  to  Him  who  cannot  err.  Let  Him  teach  us 
what  the  Church  is."  Contrast  with  this  the  por- 
traiture of  the  great  leader  of  the  Donatists  or 
Separatist  party,  as  it  is  summed  up  by  a  German 
scholar  in  a  monograph  of  recognized  authority  on 
the  subject :  "  Parmenian,"  says  Ribbeck ,"  like  all 
Separatists,  lays  stress  on  the  letter  rather  than 
the  spirit  of  Holy  Scripture.  Hence  he  attached 
greater  importance  to  external  than  to  internal 
marks  of  separation  between  the  Church  and  the 
world."     In  a  word,  the  conception  of  the  living 


AND   ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      65 

authority  of  the  Apostolic  message  as  such  had 
been  lost.  It  had  been  replaced  by  that  of  the 
mere  mechanical  authority  of  isolated  expres- 
sions of  an  inspired  document.  To  the  testimony 
of  St.  Augustine,  already  cited,  we  may  add  that 
of  another  Latin  Father,  one  of  the  greatest 
Bishops  who  ever  sat  in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter. 
Leo  L,  Bishop  of  Rome,  writing  to  Flavian,  Pa- 
triarch of  Constantinople,  on  an  ever  memorable 
occasion,  says  :  "  The  source  of  error  is,  that, 
when  men  are  hindered  by  some  obscurity,  they 
run  not  to  Prophets,  or  Apostles,  or  Evangelists 
[mark  the  phraseology] ,  but  to  themselves.  Hence 
they  continue  to  be  teachers  of  error  because  they 
have  not  been  disciples  of  the  truth." 

The  time  has  now  come,  thank  God,  when  at 
least  we  Anglican  Christians  can  look  back  at 
the  history  of  the  past  alike  with  adequate  his- 
torical knowledge  and  sufificient  impartiality  to  en- 
able us  to  trace  at  least  the  outlines  of  the 
process  by  which  the  Church's  hold  upon  the 
living  Apostolic  message  became  sufficiently 
slack  to  give  to  the  forces  of  disunion  their  oppor- 
tunity of  partial  triumph.  Read  any  of  the  great 
Fathers  of  the  early  centuries.  Take,  for  example, 
St.  Iremeus  in  the  second  century,  St.  Athanasius 
in  the  fourth  century,  St.  Leo  of  Rome  in  the  fi  fth, 
men  who  were  the  most  conspicuous  examples 
of  defenders  of  the  faith  and  unity  of  the  Church, 


66        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

and  you  will  be  struck  by  the  constantly  recurring 
evidence  of  the  extent  to  which  the  authority  of 
the  Apostolate,  as  shown  in  their  words  and  their 
work,  was  to  them  an  abiding,  present  force. 
Gradually  as  the  centuries  rolled  by  and  the  age 
of  the  Apostles  receded  into  the  dim  past  of  his- 
tory, whilst  great  teachers  had  been  raised  up  in 
brilliant  succession  to  defend  the  Faith  against 
the  perils  of  those  later  times,  the  authority  of 
these  teachers  began  to  dim  in  some  measure  that 
of  the  Apostles  of  the  Lord. 

The  evil  was  much  aggravated  by  the  grow- 
ing habit  of  pressing  to  an  altogether  ex- 
orbitant extent  the  dominant  allegorical  method 
of  interpretation  of  Holy  Scripture.  This  method, 
rooted  as  it  is  in  the  true  principle  that 
every  passage  of  Holy  Scripture  receives  its 
most  fruitful  interpretation  when  viewed  in  the 
light  of  the  deepest  teachings  of  the  whole  Revela- 
tion, yet  by  its  illegitimate  exaggeration  went 
far  to  altogether  hide  the  message  of  the  separate 
parts  of  Scripture  under  a  luxuriant  growth  of 
the  pious  meditations  of  devout  minds.  One  can 
readily  see  how  under  this  treatment  indiviaual 
souls  might  gain  much  spiritual  profit,  whilst  the 
wider  lessons  of  Holy  Writ  which  deal  with  the 
perils  of  the  Church's  corporate  life  would  be  large- 
ly obscured.  In  this  way  it  became  possible  that 
in  a  rude  age,  when  the  very  foundations  of  West- 


AMD  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.       67 

ern  civilizition  were  being  slowly  and  painfully 
relaid  amongst  the  dominant  Teutonic  peoples, 
the  false  witness  of  the  Decretals  was  able  to 
gain  acceptance  and  give  the  lie  to  the  plainest 
teachings  of  the  Apostolic  history.  Thus  was 
the  Papacy  impelled  forwards  on  that  path  of 
ecclesiastical  despotism  which  was  mainly  respon- 
sible for  the  first  great  schism  between  East  and 
West. 

A  little  later,  as  the  West  pursues  its  now 
isolated  course,  we  find  a  growing  tendency  to 
discourage  amongst  the  lay-people  the  reading 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  whilst  the  vast  multiplicity 
of  the  Patristic  writings  necessitated  an  attempt  to 
correlate  and  harmonize  them  in  some  more  com- 
pendious form.  This  natural  tendency  synchro- 
nized with  the  period  of  rising  influence  of  the 
Aristotelian  philosophy,  introduced  into  Western 
Europe  through  the  Arab  conquests.  The 
combined  result  was  seen  in  the  position  gained 
by  the  Sentences  of  Peter  Lombard  and  the 
Snniina  of  St.  Thomas,  with  the  mass  of  scho- 
lastic literature  to  which  these  great  works  gave 
birth.  The  work  of  the  great  scholastic  Doctors 
was  undoubtedly  from  many  points  of  view  of 
great  and  abiding  value.  Their  desire  on  the  one 
side  to  harmonize  and  make  effectual  the  spiritual 
inheritance  of  the  past  contained  in  the  writings  of 
the  Fathers,  and  on  the  other  to  interpret  the  un- 


68        TflE  JIOL^  SCRIPT'JRES  AS  TflE  RULE 

changing  Faith  afresh  to  a  new  age  so  as  to 
meet  the  needs  of  men  trained  by  new  in- 
struments of  human  thought,  was  lofty  and  true. 
But  it  must  still  be  confessed  that  the  indirect  in- 
fluence of  the  diversion  of  the  thought  and  spiritual- 
ity of  centuries  so  exclusively  into  these  channels 
was  most  mischievous,  and  accentuated  the  grow- 
ing disregard  of  the  Apostolic  message  itself. 
The  Stininhi  and  the  Sentences  practically  re- 
placed the  "Apostles  and  Prophets"  as  the  living 
fountains  «)f  the  Church's  thouirht  and  guidance. 
Not  all  the  influence  of  a  Nicholas  de  Lyra  or  a 
Wyclif  could  greatly  avail  to  stem  the  rising  tide. 
For  another  century  the  decay  of  Scriptural 
study  and  influence  continued  unchecked.  Hence, 
when  the  invention  of  printing  struck  off  the 
shackles  from  literature,  and  the  diffusion  of  Greek 
learning  consequent  upon  the  fall  of  the  Eastern 
Empire  rendered  possible  the  study  of  the  Apos- 
tolic writings  and  of  the  great  Greek  theologians 
in  their  original  tongue,  the  rebound  was  startling 
in  its  intensity,  and  almost  necessarily  one-sided 
and  disproportioned  in  its  results.  Men  had 
lost  the  knowledge  of  the  right  use  of  the  great 
spiritual  weapon  thus  suddenly  placed  in  their 
hands.  They  had  to  recover  slowly  through  the 
discipline  of  stormy  centuries  that  full  conception 
of  the  ofiflce  of  Holy  Scripture  which  had  been  in- 
stinctive in  the  Apostolic  churches  of  earlier  days. 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.       69 

The  evil  was  aggravated  by  many  concurrent 
mischiefs.  The  abuses  and  corruptions  of  the 
Church  discredited  its  ancient  polity  and  organi- 
zation. The  recognized  Papal  pretensions  fatally 
confounded  the  authority  of  the  Divinely  con- 
stituted body  of  the  Episcopate  with  the  radically 
antagonistic  claim  of  the  Papacy  to  sum  up  all  eccle- 
siastical authority  in  itself.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  the  attitudeof  a  large  part  of  the  Episcopate 
was  strangely  unsympathetic  in  this  supreme 
crisis,  and  rather  aggravated  than  diminished 
the  strain.  Moreover,  the  religious  leaders  of 
the  New  Learning  themselves,  so  far,  at  least, 
as  they  were  represented  by  men  like  John 
Calvin  or  Martin  Chemnitz,  brought  to  the 
study  of  Holy  Scripture  minds  fashioned  in  the 
current  scholastic  dialectics,  the  influence  of  which 
they  were  unable  to  shake  off.  The  Holy  Scrip- 
tures were  thus  too  exclusively  regarded  as  a  foun- 
tain of  doctrine.  The  intellectual  and  philosophical 
aspects  of  the  Divine  message  obtained  undue 
predominance  over  its  moral  and  institutional 
sides.  The  balanced  language  of  the  English 
Bishops  in  their  authoritative  declaration  of 
1543,  entitled  A  Necessary  Doctrine,  etc.,  soon 
ceased  to  reflect  the  dominant  temper  of  the  Con- 
tinental Reformers.  These  words  of  our  spiritual 
fathers,  thank  God,  are  far  more  likely  to  be 
heeded  now,  and  I  therefore  give  a  short  extract 


70        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

from  them  :  "  The  unity  of  the  Catholic  Church 
[say  they],  which  all  Christian  men  (in  the 
Apostles'  Creed)  do  profess,  is  conserved  and  kept 
by  the  help  and  assistance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God  in  retaining  and  maintaining  of  such  doc- 
trine and  profession  of  Christian  faith  and  true 
observance  of  the  same  as  is  taught  by  the 
Scripture  and  doctrine  Apostolic,  and  particular 
churches  [the  context  shows  that  the  reference  is 
to  the  existing  historic  churches  of  Europe] 
ought  not,  in  the  said  doctrine  so  accepted  and 
allowed,  to  vary,  one  from  another,  for  any  mere 
arrogance  or  any  other  woildly  affection,  but  in- 
violably to  observe  the  same,  so  that  by  reason  of 
that  doctrine  each  church  that  teacheth  the  same 
may  be  worthily  called  (as  it  is  indeed)  an  Apos- 
tolic church,  that  is  to  say,  following  such  teaching 
as  the  Apostles  preached,  with  ministration  of  such 
sacraments  as  be  approved  by  the  same."  These 
men,  it  is  clear,  regarded  the  Apostolic  Scriptures 
as  a  living  rule  and  standard  by  which  the  deposit 
of  faith  handed  down  in  the  organic  Church  was 
in  every  age  to  be  tried,  conserved  and  enriched. 
On  the  Continent  this  view  was  almost  every- 
where being  replaced  by  a  conception  of  the  office 
of  lioly  Scripture  which  divorced  it  entirely  from 
the  historic  Church,  making  it  a  storehouse  of 
doctrinal  propositions,  from  which  the  true  faith 
was   to   be  afresh   selected   and  gathered.     The 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      7 1 

Holy  Scriptures  ceased  to  be  the  living  continuous 
representatives  of  Apostolic  authority,  witnessing 
to  the  Divine  and  binding  character  of  Apostolical  i 
institutions  and  actions  as  well  as  of  Apostolical . 
teachings  and  words.  They  were  interpreted,  not 
in  the  light  of  the  actual  faith  of  the  Apostolic 
churches,  as  the  same  had  been  continuously 
handed  down  througii  the  long  ages  of  the 
Church's  warfare,  but  with  a  growing  disregard  of 
historical  continuity,  according  to  the  bent  and 
fancy  of  great  individual  teachers.  Those  were 
times  in  which,  owing  to  the  lack  of  our  modern 
facilities  for  historical  research,  and  the  discredit 
into  which  the  appeal  to  history  had  been  thrown 
by  the  forged  Decretals  and  the  abuse  of  Patristic 
authority,  men  were  far  less  able  than  now  to 
trust  the  historical  continuity  of  Christian  doctrine 
as  a  witness  to  the  right  use  of  the  Apostolic  Scrip- 
tures. Hence  it  is  no  wonder  that  Confessions  of 
differing  types  grew  and  multiplied.  The  divisions 
of  Protestantism  became  a  by-word  and  a  scandal, 
which  largely  gave  strength  to  the  counter-revo- 
lution of  the  Roman  Church,  and  discredited  its 
cause  in  the  minds  of  thinking,  devout  men.  The 
battles  of  the  Confessions  created  as  much  bitterness 
and  monopolized  as  much  attention  as  any  scho- 
lastic controversies  of  medic-eval  times.  Meanwhile 
the  Roman  Church  looked  on  with  contempt  at  the 
rapid  evolution  of  dissensions,  disintegration,  and 


72        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

division,  and  was  strengthened  the  more  in  its  own 
exclusive  claims.  Nor  should  an  Anglican  Priest 
be  slow  to  confess  how  the  English  Church,  torn 
and  vexed  by  doctrinal  controversies  imported 
from  abroad,  vainly  sought  relief  by  undue  de- 
pendence upon  the  civil  power;  how  in  conse- 
quence the  germs  of  fresh  dissensions  were  quick- 
ened into  active  life  ;  how  a  largely  dominant  but 
thoroughly  unscriptural  Erastianism,  particularly 
under  the  early  Hanoverian  monarchs,  with  their 
unconstitutional  despotism  in  matters  affecting 
the  Church,  weakened  her  spiritual  power 
and  thus  distorted  and  disguised  her  real  beauty 
in  the  eyes  of  Christian  people.  Such  causes 
largely  accelerated  (though  they  certainly  did  not 
justify)  the  greatest  secession  we  have  ever  suf- 
fered, in  the  separation  of  the  Methodist  body, 
nurtured,  be  it  remembered,  from  infancy  to  far- 
developed  youth  within  the  Communion  of  the 
Mother  Church. 

So  far,  then,  we  have  passed  in  rapid  review 
the  sad  record  of  causes  which  lie  at  the  back  of 
the  present  deplorably  divided  state  of  Ameri- 
can Christianity.  For  be  it  remembered  that 
almost  the  only  purely  American  c-ontribution 
to  tlie  cause  of  sectarianism  has  been  merely 
to  subdivide  in  comparatively  unimportant  and 
unessential  particulars  the  systems  inherited 
from  the  Old  World.     Only  one  really  large  or 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      73 

important  religious  body  amongst  us  claims  an 
exclusively  American  origin.  It  is  noticeable 
that  that  body,  "The  Disciples  of  Christ,"  itself 
exists  as  a  protest  against  division.  It  aims,  al- 
beit in  a  quite  mistaken  way,  to  bring  about  the 
union  of  Christians  by  forming  one  more  denomi- 
nation for  the  purpose,  and  by  discarding  not  only 
all  Confessions  but  all  Creeds.  The  obstacles  to 
corporate  unity  are  thus  much  less  than  they 
might  have  been  had  the  separating  spirit  received 
some  powerful  native  and  American  embodiment. 
The  foregoing  historical  retrospect  will  have 
been  faulty  indeed  if  it  has  not  shown  how  largely 
the  loss  of  corporate  unity  has  sprung  from  the 
neglect  or  misapprehension  of  the  ofTfice  of  the 
Apostolic  Scriptures.  Yet  all  the  while  those 
precious  Apostolic  fountains  of  the  Church's  life 
were  lying  ready  to  hand,  able  when  rightly  used 
to  minister  that  spirit  of  unity  which  would  have 
vanquished  every  Separatist  tendency.  In  the  em- 
phasis which  they  lay  upon  the  true  source  of  au- 
thority in  the  Church,  through  the  living  perma- 
nence of  the  whole  Apostolic  foundation,  whether 
institutional  or  doctrinal;  in  their  historical 
breadth  and  sweep,  carrying  men's  minds  away 
from  local  or  racial  or  mere  passing  questions 
which  at  any  particular  age  may  acquire  undue  pre- 
dominance, to  those  Divine  pictures  of  long  ago, 
in  which  amidst  all  their  differing  forms  the  un- 


74        THE  HOL  Y  SCRIP  TURKS  A  S  THE  R  ULE 

changing  perils  of  the  Church  and  of  humanity 
are  typically  portrayed  and  met ;  in  the  lessons 
of  patience  we  learn  as  we  watch  the  foundations 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  slowly  and  gradually 
prepared  and  laid  through  the  long  centuries  of 
time  covered  by  the  Biblical  narrative;  in  the  vital 
reciprocal  connection  which  they  reveal  between 
Christian  doctrine  and  Christian  life  in  all  its 
forms,  whether  individual  or  corporate  ;  above  all, 
in  the  vision  which  they  give  of  the  one  Person  of 
the  Incarnate  Lord  as  the  root  and  centre  of  both 
the  Church's  life  and  the  Church's  faith  ;  the  Apos- 
tolic writings  contain  within  themselves  the  neces- 
sary spiritual  bond  of  unity  alike  forthe  institutional 
and  the  dogmatic  life  of  the  Church.  Nor  are  there 
wanting  many  signs  that  the  reverent  devotion 
with  which  Christians  everywhere  in  our  days  are 
turning  from  their  own  preconceived  ways  to  sit 
humbly  and  intelligently  at  the  feet  of  the  great 
Apostolic  teachers  is  already  playing  a  most  im- 
portant part  in  preparing  the  way  for  corporate 
reunion.  In  whatever  measure  it  be  true,  as  a 
distinguished  American  thinker  has  said,  that  "  the 
centrifugal  period  of  Protestantism  is  over,  the 
centripetal  period  has  begun,"  the  moving  cause  is 
in  the  main  a  deeper  appreciation  and  more  intel- 
ligent apprehension  of  the  fulness  of  the  Apos- 
tolic message.  Men  have  begun  to  catch  sight 
of  a  more  glorious  vision  than  they  knew  before. 


AND  ULTIMATE  STANDARD  OF  FAITH.      75 

They  have  recognized  the  possibility  of  repro- 
ducing in  the  world  Apostolic  unity  as  the 
Apostles  themselves  portrayed  and  fashioned  it. 
We  have  seen  in  our  day  the  upgrowth  of  a 
school  of  Biblical  interpretation  at  once  historical, 
scholarly,  and  reverent,  which  has  quickened  in 
every  part  the  spiritual  force  of  the  Anglican 
Communion,  by  teaching  us  to  see  in  the  historic 
personality  and  work  of  the  Apostles  themselves 
an  integral  part  of  the  whole  Revelation.  We  have 
watched  the  rise  of  theologians  outside  our  own 
Communion,  of  men  like  Dr.  Milligan  in  Scotland 
and  Dr  Dale  of  Birmingham,  whose  writings  on 
leadingdoctrinesof  the  Faithhave  been  welcomed 
everywhere  amongst  English-speaking  Christians 
as  thoroughly  Catholic  and  Scriptural,  powerful 
to  the  breaking  down  of  doctrinal  differences  and 
to  their  solution  in  a  deeper  and  truer  unity.  In 
the  great  Roman  Communion  we  have  seen  the 
Supreme  Pontiff  reversing  the  dominant  practice 
if  not  the  theoretical  rule  of  his  Communion  for 
centuries  past,  and  enforcing  the  duty  of  the  deeper 
study  of  Holy  Scripture  as  the  real  remedy 
for  the  evils  of  our  time.  That  Allocution 
has  already  borne  manifest  and  widespread  results. 
Within  the  last  few  weeks  the  following  advice 
was  formally  given  by  Cardinal  Gibbons  to  candi- 
dates for  Confirmation  in  the  capital  city  of  America 
as  reprinted  in  the  Washington  Post:  "My  children, 


^6        THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES  AS  THE  RULE 

I  want  to  impress  upon  you  one  thing  which  I 
have  no  doubt  will  be  a  surprise  to  some.  I  want 
each  and  every  one  of  you  to  procure  a  Bible.  I 
exhort  you  to  read  the  Word  of  God  with  reverence 
and  devotion.  Read  the  Holy  Scriptures  dili- 
gently. This  is  an  admonition  to  you  of  the  Church 
of  God,  delivered  by  the  prelate  of  God  in  the 
Church."  No  wonder  that  with  such  forces  at  work 
we  have  the  following  testimony  from  a  leading 
English  Nonconformist  minister  :  "  The  increas- 
ing gravitation  of  Christian  churches  towards  each 
other  is  indisputable.  We  cannot  help  it.  The 
psychological  climate  created  by  the  ministry  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  in  these  later  years  renders  it 
impossible  for  us  to  be  content  with  our  traditional 
separations,  and  satisfied  with  our  human  and  mis- 
chievous sectarianisms." 

True,  as  of  old,  when  the  Apostle  discerned  a 
great  door  and  effectual  opened  before  him,  there 
are  many  adversaries.  None,  perhaps,  amongst 
the  discouraging  signs  is  more  terribly  alarming 
than  the  growing  famine  of  an  intelligent  knowl- 
edge of  the  Word  of  God  which  our  sad  divisions 
have  directly  produced,  by  practically  banishing 
from  our  entire  educational  curriculum  the  real 
study  of  that  Divine  Library  and  of  that  body 
of  Divine  Truth,  which  is  above  all  other 
things  most  efficacious  alike  for  expanding 
the    human    mind    or   moulding    the    character 


A  ND  UL  TIM  A  TE  S  TA  NDA  RD  OF  FA  I  Til.      7  7 

of  our  youth.  I  would  that  the  day  may  soon 
come  which  may  find  the  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church  furnished  with  a  great  central  Univer- 
sity, adequately  equipped  and  endowed  to  exert 
its  full  influence  upon  the  education  and  thought  of 
our  country ;  where,  as  in  the  Universities  of  the  Old 
Land,  the  ideals  of  our  fathers  of  the  English  Ref- 
ormation may  be  realized,  and  the  place  of  Biblical 
and  Sacred  study  in  the  plan  of  a  Christian  Uni- 
versity more  effectually  vindicated  before  the  in- 
telligent people  of  this  great  country  than  has  yet 
been  the  case. 

Beyond  all  doubt,  and  the  thought  is  gladly 
emphasized  by  many  outside  the  pale  of  our  Com- 
munion, the  American  Church  has  an  unique  and 
glorious  office  to  perform  in  the  building  up  of  a 
united  American  Christianity.  It  behooves  us, 
then,  clergy,  and  especially  laymen,  to  see  to  it 
that  the  means  are  forthcoming,  and  that  speedily, 
which  will  give  to  this  Church  of  the  Reconcilia- 
tion the  same  measure  of  influence  in  the  smaller 
towns  and  amongst  the  more  scattered  popula- 
tions of  this  country  that  she  already  possesses  in 
the  larger  centres  of  population.  When  thought- 
ful and  devout  minds  are  looking  with  hope  and 
affection  to  this  Church  as  especially  entrusted 
with  the  cause  of  corporate  unity;  when  God 
by  His  providence  is  summoning  us  to  gird 
ourselves  for  so  mighty  a  vocation,  how  inexpres- 


78  THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES. 

sibly  culpable  will  be  our  sluggishness  or  apathy 
in  claiming  for  our  Church  that  measure  of  influ- 
ence throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land  to  which  she  is  clearly  and  indisputably  en- 
titled. 

Let  us,  then,  beloved,  do  our  part  hopefully 
and  lovingly  in  this,  as  yet,  day  of  small  things, 
believing  that  beneath  all  the  turmoil  and  the 
discord  of  our  divided  Christianity  are  being  laid 
slowly  and  firmly,  by  a  Divine  Hand,  the  founda- 
tions of  what  has  been  so  well  termed  a  "United 
Church  of  the  United  States,"  which  shall  yet  ex- 
ercise a  healing  and  benign  influence  throughout 
our  land  ;  a  Church  holding  firmly  amid  all  sec- 
ondary differences  to  the  fulness  of  the  Apostolic 
message,  and  solidly  compacted  together  by  the 
conserving  bond  of  Apostolic  organization  and 
worship. 

God's  Spirit  in  the  Church 

Still  lives  unspent,  untired, 
Inspiring  hearts  that  fain  would  search 

The  truths  Himself  inspired. 
Move,  Holy  Ghost,  with  might 

Amongst  us  as  of  old, 
Dispel  the  falsehood  and  unite 

In  true  faith  the  true  fold.     Amen!     Amen! 


Zhc  Zx^o  Crcct)0* 


LECTURE  III. 

VEN.    CHARLES   S.    OLMSTED, 

OF   COOPERSTOWN,    N.    Y. 

Archdeacon    of    the    Susquehanna. 

THE  TWO  CREEDS, 

The  best  method  by  which  to  arrive  at  a  defi- 
nition of  the  Creeds,  and  at  the  same  time  to  dis- 
cover what  they  involve,  and  what  relation  they 
bear  to  other  doctrinal  standards  and  to  the 
reunion  of  Christendom,  is  to  trace  their  origin 
and  history. 

I. 

It  will  not  be  denied  that  the  entire  idea,  fact 
and  doctrine  of  Christianity  may  be  reduced  in  the 
last  analysis  to  a  single  concept,  viz.,  that  God  is 
become  Man  in  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ. 

TertuUian  said,  "The  consciousness  of  God  is 
the  original  dowry  of  the  soul."  This  conscious- 
ness is  the  most  patent  and  pervasive  fact  in  hu- 
man history.  It  enters  into  the  very  fibre  of  all 
human  life.  To  it  the  Ethnic  religions  owe  their 
being  and  vitality.     The  world  has  always  desired 


82  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

God  as  an  object  of  worship  and  as  an  object  of 
knowledge.  Even  more,  it  has  ever  desired  to  be 
united  to  God.  However  distorted  the  notion  of 
how  sucli  an  union  may  be  effected,  in  the  fugitive 
incarnations  of  Indian  culture,  or  in  the  apotheoses 
of  Hellenic  thought,  it  proclaims  the  dim  but 
persistent  hope  which  is  native  to  the  human 
heart. 

In  the  "great  mystery  of  our  Christian  faith  we 
find  how  man  can  be  united  to  the  Absolute  and 
Abiding  Reality  which  underlies  the  universe. 
God  answers  man's  hope  by  taking  manhood  into 
God.  In  a  manner  undreamed  ofby  human  re- 
ligions the  desire  of  those  religions  is  accom- 
plished. In  a  manner  due  to  Divine  wisdom  alone 
the  union  is  effected.  The  Son  of  God  assumes 
our  nature  into  His  Divine  Person.  It  is  not  by 
changing  Himself  into  man,  nor  by  uniting  entirely 
to  Himself  a  human  person,  nor  by  exalting  a 
single  man  on  account  of  his  goodness  to  become 
God,  nor  by  uniting  all  men  in  their  persons  to 
the  nature  of  God  that  the  Son  of  God  unites 
God  and  man. 

The  Incarnation  takes  place  in  a  Divine  man- 
ner, undreamed  ofby  the  world,  and  is  proved  not 
only  by  its  fitness  to  the  desire  and  need  of  man, 
but  by  its  Divine  method  of  becoming.  The  na- 
ture of  man  is  united  to  the  nature  of  God  in  the 
Person  of  the  Eternal  Son. 


THE  TWO  CREEDS.  83 

The  true  knowledge  of  the  Incarnate  Son 
of  God  is  the  peculiar  possession  of  Christians. 
He  Himself  revealed  it  to  certain  men  whom  He 
named  Apostles.  He  lived  with  them,  and  per- 
mitted them  to  see  and  hear  the  word  of  life. 
They  paid  to  Hihn  Divine  worship.  They  acknowl- 
edged Him  to  be  the  Lord.  They  knew  Whom 
they  believed,  for  they  had  an  unction  from  the 
Holy  One.  They  spent  their  lives  in  His  service. 
They  poured  out  their  blood  in  witness  to  the 
truth  of  His  Divinity. 

In  subsequent  ages  the  Apostolic  witness  was 
felt  to  be  true  by  vast  multitudes  of  people,  who 
gave  themselves  to  the  Lord.  They  lived  the  life 
of  Christ.  They  entered  here  on  an  heavenly 
state  of  being.  They  fed  on  immortal  food. 
They  contemplated  in  simple  faith  the  condescen- 
sion of  their  Master,  Who,  that  He  might  "  better 
the  quality  and  advance  the  condition  "  of  their 
nature  had  come  down  from  Heaven  and  was  made 
flesh  and  had  humbled  Himself  yet  more,  even  to 
the  death  of  the  Cross.  They  knew  the  witness 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  with  their  spirit.  They  knew 
the  Father,  knowing  the  Son.  They  had  entered 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  through  the  door  of  grace 
and  pardon.  They  looked  for  the  likeness  of  their 
Risen  Lord  not  only  in  the  spiritual  part  of  their 
nature,  but  also  in  their  bodies,  and  they  rejoiced 
in  the  hope  that  was  laid  up  for  them  in  Heaven. 


84  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

From    the  day  of    Pentecost    Christians    were 
familiar  witli   certain    facts    of   revelation   which 
Christ  had  come  into  the  world  to  brin"',     Thev 
had  a  body  of  doctrine,  which  they  had  received, 
not  having  chosen  it,  or  any  portion  of  it,  for  them, 
selves.     The  Lord  had  said  to  the  Apostles,  "  Ye 
believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  me."     He  had  spo- 
ken to  them  of  the  Comforter  and   of  the  things 
pertaining  to  His   Kingdom.      He  had    directed 
them  to  make  disciples  of  all  nations  by  baptizing 
them  into  the  Name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son 
and   of  the   Holy  Ghost.      He  had  thus  outlined 
those  summaries  of  belief  which  afterward  were 
used  in  the  Church  on  the  admission  of  new  mem- 
bers to  the  Baptismal  privilege,  all  substantially 
alike,  all   containing  some   mention  of  the  chief 
facts  in  Christ's  redemptive  work,  and  of  the  inef- 
fable mystery  of  the  Trinity.     The  chief  creed  of 
the  West,  called  the  Apostles',  which  it  is  believed 
can  be  traced,  very  nearly  as  we  have  it,  to  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  embodies  them  all, 
and  in  fact  embodies   that  which  they  stood  for 
— the    universal   tradition  of  the   Church   of  the 
Apostles. 

But  into  the  ever-widening  circle  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church  great  nations  came,  and  under  the 
shadow  of  its  precious  tree  sat  down  to  rest.  Sages 
from  the  East  and  from  the  South  were  attracted 
by  its  marvellous  light.     It  could  not  be  long  ere 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  85 

the  simplicity  of  the  faith  would  be  exposed  to 
the  influence  of  strange  and  intricate  philosophies. 
Here  and  there  the  effete  ineptitudes  of  an  earlier 
time  engrafted  themselves  upon  the  pure  root  of 
truth  and  flourished  with  renewed  vigor.  "  While 
there  were  no  heretics,  there  was  no  need  to  guard 
against  heresy,"*  but  now  it  was  no  longer  pos- 
sible for  the  Church  simply  to  live  her  belief.  She 
must  learn  to  discover  its  significance.  That 
which  she  had  so  deeply  felt  must  be  intellectu- 
ally more  and  more  interrogated  and  explained. 

Converted  philosophers  were  forward  to  con- 
strue the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  according  to  the 
formulas  of  Chaldaic  Judaism  or  of  heathen 
schools,  and  we  are  sufficiently  familiar  with 
Ebionism  and  Docetism,  and  the  host  of  errors 
that  followed  for  centuries  in  the  wake  first  of  the 
one  and  then  of  the  other. 

The  question,  humanly  speaking,  was,  could 
the  Church  keep  her  peculiar  treasure,  which  she 
had  contemplated  in  her  simple  and  believing 
heart  far  more  than  she  had  meditated  with  her 
reason  ?  If  so,  she  must  not  forbear  to  treat  it  as 
an  object  of  intellectual  inquiry,  much  as  she 
would  shrink  from  subjecting  the  nature  of  her 
adorable  Head  to  human  questions  and  reason- 
ings.    She  had  a  true  and  unchangeable  belief  in 


* 'Bu.rion's  Ecclesiastical  History,  p.  404. 


86  THE   TWO  CREED.i. 

the  Son  of  God  and  the  Father  Whom  He  came 
\o  reveal,  but  under  the  repeated  attacks  of  ra- 
tionalistic denial  not  all  her  teachers  at  all  times 
could  give  adequate  statements  in  scientific  lan- 
guage concerning  it.  She  had  a  delicate  spiritual 
tact,  which  always  prompted  her  to  perceive  the 
incipiency  of  error,  but  she  could  not  always  meet 
it  at  once  in  words  of  unquestioned  clearness  and 
with  concurrent  authority.  She  was  like  a  child 
who  is  told  that  its  God  is  the  rocks  and  woods 
and  waters.  It  knows  what  it  worships,  and  that 
its  GoJ  is  not  the  rocks  and  woods  and  waters, 
but  it  is  at  a  loss  to  describe  this  article  of  its  be- 
lief  in  impregnable  terms. 

Melancholy  as  the  primitive  heresies  were,  they 
compelled  the  Church  to  direct  her  reason  upon 
the  all-absorbing  theme;  they  compelled  believers 
to  become  theologians;  they  compelled  the 
Church  in  its  collective  capacity  to  formulate 
definitions  of  faith. 

In  the  face  of  those  Christological  heresies,  the 
Church  for  five  whole  ages  had  to  gather  what 
had  been  handed  down  from  the  first  by  her  uni- 
versal tradition  concerning  the  Only-Begotten; 
she  had  to  translate  the  language  of  the  spiritual 
world  into  that  of  the  intellectual;  she  had  to  ex- 
hibit Divine  realities  as  best  she  might  in  the  for- 
eign medium  of  human  speech;  she  had  to  reduce 
the  varieties  of  theological  terms  and  statements 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  87 

to  technicality,  and  purge  them  of  any  supposed 
perverse  connotations,  lifting-  the  term  homoou- 
sion,  for  instance,  out  of  all  Gnostic,  Manichean 
and  Sabellian  senses,  to  which  it  had  been  appro- 
priated, and  so  authoritatively  to  establish  an  ex- 
act scientific  terminology,  by  which  the  relations 
of  the  Three  Subsistences  eternally  interior  to 
the  Substance  of  the  Godhead  might  be  for  ever 
guarded  from  misapprehension. 

As  the  Apostles'  Creed  had  embodied  the  tra- 
dition of  the  Church,  the  Creed  called  the  Nicene 
scientifically  stated  that  tradition.  Ante-Niccne 
theology  did  not  differ  in  essence  at  all  from  the 
theology  of  Athanasius  and  Nice,  of  Cyril  and 
Ephesus,  of  Leo  and  Chalcedon,  of  Sophronius 
and  that  Council  of  Constantinople  in  which  the 
influence  of  his  unforgotten  faith  determined  mat- 
ters. It  had  simply  used  terms  in  an  unscientific 
manner,  terms  often  good  enough  in  themselves, 
but  not  ahvays  taken  to  mean  the  same  thing  by 
different  minds. 

That  Creed  which  is  called  the  Nicene,  which 
is  really  no  doubt  an  old  Palestinian  Creed  adopt- 
ed with  variations  at  Nice  and  afterward  at  Con- 
stantinople, with  additions,  and  expressly  con- 
firmed by  the  authority  of  the  Ephesine  and  Chal- 
cedonian  Councils  and  now  used  by  us  with  cer- 
tain differences,  contains  the  substance  of  all 
earlier  summaries  of  the  faith  very  much  as  the 


88  7^ HE   TWO  CREEDS. 

Epistles  of  the  New  Testament  contain  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Gospels.     It  is  dogmatic  truth,  i.e., 
revealed  beliefs  subjected  to  processes  of  thought, 
analyzed,     harmoniously     viewed,    consolidated, 
measured  in  the  light  of  concurrent  and  traditional 
conviction,  authorized  by  the  Church  representa- 
tively, accepted    without     qualification     by    the 
Church  universally,  of  perpetual   obligation  even 
in   its  minutest  points   upon  all  portions   of  the 
Christian  world.    It  crystallized  Apostolic  and  uni- 
versal tradition.     It  set  forth  in  as   few  words  as 
possible  the  great  body  of  Divine  faith  which  Our 
Blessed  Lord  gave  into  His  Church's  hands  at  the 
beginning,  and  which  had  been  proved  all  along 
by  the  Scriptures.     It  juridically  expressed  the 
Church's  ecumenical  mind.     It  stated  systemati- 
cally   what  had    been    unsystematically    diffused 
through  the  writings  of  an  innumerable  throng  of 
witnesses.     It  embalmed  the   spirit   of  essential 
truth.      It    was  the   chorus   of  fathers,   liturgies, 
those  "  acted  creeds,"  as  they  have  been  finely 
called,  councils,  summaries  of  belief.     It  was  like 
the  cloud  which  gathering  and  deepening  mists 
from  every  quarter  of  the  summer  sky  have  form- 
ed, which  sustains  the  light  of  the  sunrising,  and 
glows    in    the    splendors     of    the     passing    day. 
Looked  at  in  their  bare  outline  the  Creeds  may 
seem  like  Grecian  temples,  severe  and  straight  on 
every  side;  but  surrounded  by  the  piety  and  virtue 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  89 

of  the  lives  that  have  lived  them,  and  illumined 
by  the  One  Supreme  and  spotless  life  to  which 
they  testify,  they  soar  like  Gothic  minsters,  with 
lines  lost  in  lines  till  the  whole  is  softened  into  a 
vision  of  imperishable  beauty. 

As  the  Church  is  not  an  organ  of  continuous 
revelations,  but  the  repository  of  the  faith  once 
delivered  to  the  saints,  so  she  is  not  the  Author  but 
only  the  Editor  of  her  Creeds.  He  who  gave  her 
the  deposit  of  the  faith,  gave  her  ability  to  define 
and  defend  it.  She  cannot  make  that  to  be  truth 
which  was  not  truth  from  the  beginning.  She 
cannot  make  discoveries  of  things  to  be  believed 
in  order  to  salvation  in  the  fourth  or  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  which  were  not  proposed  to  the 
faith  of  Christians  in  the  first  or  in  the  second. 
Speaking  as  a  whole,  she  is  no  more  liable  to 
error  in  one  age  than  in  another.  She  is  not 
a  school  of  development  in  which  philosophical 
fancies,  called  pious  opinions,  though  often  im- 
pious, may  be  exalted  to  the  rank  of  dogma. 
Could  she  assemble  her  sons  from  every  quarter 
to-day  in  a  lawful  General  Council,  they  could 
in  no  wise  change  or  rescind  the  Creeds  of  the 
Ecumenical  Councils.  They  could  only  declare 
their  unfeigned  assent  and  continued  allegiance  to 
every  article  contained  in  them. 

Mr.  Illingworth  in  his  Bampton  Lectures  says, 
"The  various  heresies  which  attempted  to  make 


po  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

the  Incarnation  more  intelligible,  in  reality  ex- 
plained it  away :  while  council  after  council, 
though  freely  adopting  new  phraseology  and  new 
conceptions,  never  claimed  to  do  more  than  give 
explicit  expression  to  what  the  Church  from  the 
beginning  had  implicitly  believed.  .  .  .  Christian 
theology  arose  like  all  other  human  thought,  in 
meditation  upon  a  fact  of  experience — the  life 
and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  having  arisen, 
reacted,  also  like  other  human  thought,  upon  the 
fact  which  it  explained,  illuminating,  intensifying, 
realizing  the  significance  of  the  fact."  " 

We  find  then  that  the  Creed,  called  the  Nicene, 
embodies  the  intellectual  result  of  a  lone  and 
continuous  profession  of  the  great  facts  of  Divine 
revelation.  It  stands  to  the  Apostles'  Creed  in 
the  relation  in  which  St.  Augustine  said  the  New 
Testament  stands  to  the  Old.  The  Nicene  Creed 
is  latent  in  the  Apostles',  and  the  Apostles'  Creed 
is  patent  in  the  N  icene.  The  Nicene  Creed  reflects 
the  intellect,  while  the  Apostles'  Creed  reflects 
the  heart  of  the  primitive  Church.  The  Nicene 
Creed  contains  the  matured  reflection  of  theolo- 
gians, the  Apostles'  Creed  contains  the  simple 
facts  on  which  believers  fed. 

When  questioned  as  to  their  faith,  Catholics 
could    say   the   Apostles',    and   when    cross-ques- 


Peisonality,  Human  a lul  Divine,  p.   ii. 


riFE    TWO  CREEDS.  9 1 

tioned  they  could   say   the  Niccne.     1  he  one  is 
not  diverse  from  the  otlier.     In   its   substance  it 
contains    nothing-  in  excess  of  the  other.     The 
Niccne  Creed  is  simply  the  amplified  statement 
of  the  articles  of  faith  handed  down  from  the  days 
of  the  Apostles.     It  is  the  Apostles'  Creed  sub- 
jectively viewed,   not   altered.     It  is  not  that  or 
any  otlicr  old   formula  made  over  to   suit  a  phi- 
losophy of  foreign  imposition.     It   is   simply  the 
subject  enlarged  in  itself.     "  These  Catholic  dec- 
larations of  our  belief,"  says  Hooker,  "  delivered 
by  them  which  were  so  much  nearer  than  we  are 
unto  the  first  publication  thereof,  and  continually 
needful  for  all   men  at   all  times  to  know,  these 
confessions  as  testimonies  of  our  continuance  in 
the  same  faith  to  the  present  day,  we   rather  use 
than  any  other  gloss  or   paraphrase  devised   by 
ourselves,  which,  though  it  were  to  the  same  ef- 
fect, notwithstanding  could  not  be  of  the  like  au- 
thority and  credit."  * 

II. 

The  Creeds  involve  the  existence  and  use  of 
Apostolic  tradition,  through  the  whole  body  of 
which  its  vital  diffusion  can  be  traced  by  the  dog- 
matic historian.  The  Anglican  Church  teaches 
that  "  Holy  Scripture  containeth  all  things  neces- 
sary to   salvation  :  so  that  whatever  is  not  read 

*  Works,  Church's  Keble  Ed.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  182. 


92  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

therein,  nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is  not  to  be 
required  of  any  man,  that  it  should  be  believed  as 
an  article  of  the  Faith,  or  be  thought  requisite  or 
necessary  to  salvation,"* 

The  candid  and  learned  Du  Pin  agreed  to  this 
very  principle,  and  said  in  his  Connnonitorium, 
now  lost:  "This  we  (/.-?.,  Galileans)  will  gladly 
admit,  provided  that  tradition  be  not  excluded, 
which  does  not  exhibit  new  articles  of  faith,  but 
confirms  and  explains  those  things  which  are  con- 
tained in  Holy  Scripture,  and  fences  them  by  new 
safeguards  against  those  who  are  otherwise  mind- 
ed, so  that  nothing  new  is  said,  but  only  the  old 
in  a  new  way."  f  Would  that  all  Roman  theo- 
logians were  as  wise  and  moderate  in  their  esti- 
mate of  the  right  office  and  nature  of  tradition  ! 
The  Creeds  and  that  tradition  which  they  repre- 
sent add  nothing  to  Holy  Scripture  any  more 
than  an  image  reflected  in  a  mirror  adds  to  the 
weight  of  the  mirror.  They  were  never  felt  by 
the  whole  Church  to  be  fountains  of  the  faith. 
They  were  always  felt  to  be  symbols  of  it,  outlines 
of  it,  plain  guides  to  it,  which  the  faithful  were  to 
fill  out  and  follow  when  Scripturally  informed  and 
sacramentally  animated.  As  the  Holy  Eucharist 
sets  forth,  exhibits,  pleads,  applies,  the  Sacrifice  of 
our  Lord    on  Calvarv,  but   adds  nothing   to    its 


*  Art.  VI.  of  Religion. 

■j-  See  Pusey's  Eirenicon,  p.  213. 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  93 

merit,  so  the  Creeds  add  nothing  to  the  substance 
of  Holy  Scripture.  They  keep  us  from  misunder- 
standing its  general  drift  ;  they  apply  to  it  a  con- 
sistent interpretation.  The  Eucharist  does  not 
add  to  the  efficacy  of  the  Cross,,  but  gives  its 
efficiency,  and  the  Creeds,  in  like  manner, 
though  revealing  nothing  new,  give  clearness 
to  that  which  is  revealed  once  for  all.  They  do 
not  enter  into  the  interpretation  of  particular 
texts  of  Holy  Scripture,  but  they  form  the  result 
of  what  might  be  termed  a  higher  criticism  of  all 
Scripture.  They  are  the  classics  of  doctrinal  lit- 
erature, Homeric  in  their  dignity,  not  because  we 
cannot  in  any  degree  read  between  their  lines  the 
history  of  their  scientific  expression,  nor  weigh 
some  of  their  statements  in  the  scales  of  contem- 
poraneity, but  because  they  are,  through  their 
universal  acceptance,  lifted  above  the  merely  his- 
toric atmosphere.  They  are  touched  with  a  heav- 
enly light.  They  have  rather  the  unwrinkled 
grandeur  of  statues  than  the  charactered  coloring 
of  pictures.  We  value  them  as  being  not  only 
primitive,  but  universal ;  the  Church,  having  spoken 
once  on  the  subjects  contained  in  them,  having,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  spoken  for  all  time.  They 
are  removed  above  the  stress  of  any  individualis- 
tic or  provincial  thought.  They  have  attained, 
not  to  old  age  but  to  agelessness.  They  have  in 
them   that    immortal   quality  which  invests  the 


94  THE   TWO   CREEDS. 

whole  machinery  and  operation  of  God's  work  in 
the  world.  In  a  word,  and  in  every  sense  of  the 
word,  they  are  Catholic. 

The  Creeds  are  the  most  clearly  ascertained 
tradition  of  the  primitive  ages;  and  it  is  a  happy 
circumstance  that  this  is  so,  because  on  the  field 
of  doctrine  they  subtend  a  larger  angle  of  in- 
terpretation than  any  other,  document  of  ancient 
or  of  modern  times.  In  the  matters  of  chief  con- 
cern to  us  as  Christians,  the  Trinity,  the  Incarna- 
tion, the  Atoning  work  of  Christ,  the  agency  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  means  of  grace  and  the  life 
to  come — they  set  forth  the  very  spirit  of  Divine 
truth,  and  "it  is  not  likely,"  as  has  been  well  said 
by  Waterland,  "  that  any  whole  Church  of  those 
times  should  vary  from  Apostolic  doctrine  in 
things  of  moment,  but  it  is,  morally  speaking,  ab- 
surd to  imagine  that  all  the  churches  should  com- 
bine in  the  same  error  and  conspire  to  corrupt 
the  doctrine  af  Christ."* 

"No  man,"  said  Bishop  Bull,  "can  oppose 
Catholic  consent,  but  he  will  at  last  be  found  to 
oppose  both  the  Divine  oracles  and  sound  reason." 
Bishop  Ridley,  in  the  Necessary  Doctrine  of  a 
Christian  Man,  said  that  "All  those  things  which 
were  taught  by  the  Apostles,  and  have  been  by  the 
whole  universal  consent  of  the  Church  of  Christ 

*  Waterland's  Works,  vol.  iii.,  p.  6ii. 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  95 

ever  since  that  time  taught  continually  and  taken 
always  for  true,  ought  to  be  received,  accepted 
and  kept  as  a  perfect  doctrine  Apostolic." 

Kcble,  in  speaking  of  St.  Athanasius  as  the  one 
preeminent  among  divines,  ancient  or  modern, 
who  had  committed  his  cause  to  the  witness  of 
Scripture,  says,  "  But  the  more  unfeignedly  he 
revered  the  Bible,  the  more  thankfully  did  he 
avail  himself  of  the  greatest  of  providential  helps 
to  the  right  understanding  of  the  Bible  "  in  the 
"  irrefragable  testimony  of  the  Church."  * 

Tradition,  not  as  supplementing,  but  as  con- 
firming Holy  Scripture,  is  the  uniform  and  con- 
sistent testimony  of  the  undivided  Church.  It  is 
not  the  authority  of  individual  writers,  who  are 
often  corrected  by  the  general  voice.  It  is  not 
the  teaching  of  isolated  synods  or  particular  por- 
tions of  the  Church.  It  is  not  a  witness  confined 
to  one  age  alone,  to  the  exclusion  of  other  ages. 
If  it  is  found  to  be  unspeakably  valuable  and  nec- 
essary, into  what  distinguished  a  place  and  office 
must  we  not  set  the  Creeds,  when  we  realize  their 
character  as  the  authorized  embodiment  of  that 
universal  testimony  ! 

In  the  face  of  the  Creeds  the  Church  cannot 
introduce  new  doctrines,  which  were  unknown 
from   the  beginning.      They    overthrow   equally 

*  In  Appendi.\  to  Sermon  on  Primitive  Tradition. 


96  THE  TWO  CREEDS. 

the  theory  of  objective  development  of  doctrine 
and  the  theory  of  papal  infallibility.  Even  if 
this  latter  did  not  swallow  up  the  former,  the 
true  principle  of  tradition  and  a  traditional  Creed 
must  nullify  either.  It  stands  in  the  way  of  any 
dogmatic  decision  in  modern  times  by  any  portion 
of  Christendom  which  makes  revision  of  Creeds  a 
possibility,  which  in  fact  already  adds  to  their 
substantial  teaching,  which  would  cut  away  the 
present  from  the  past  and  make  our  century  a 
foreigner  to  the  fourth.  It  is  a  rebuke  to  the 
doctrine  which  enthrones  absolute  irresponsible- 
ness  in  the  Church  of  God,  and  invests  a  single 
prelate  of  our  day  with  a  privilege  of  which  the 
Apostles  themselves  knew  nothing. 

Catholic  consent  is  our  only  hope  of  security  in 
the  matter  of  consistent  Scriptural  interpretation, 
and  in  that  of  doctrinal  purity,  and  for  that  con- 
sent the  Catholic  Creeds  stand.  Across  the  waters 
of  this  3im  and  stormy  world  the  articles  of  our 
belief  are  the  trusted  and  unfading  stars  to  light 
our  way. 

III. 

The  Creeds  involve  a  complete  and  harmonious 
body  of  truth.  To  those  who  study  them  their 
various  articles  are  seen  to  imply  one  another,  to 
lead  into  one  another,  to  complete  and  illustrate 
one  another.     If  we  trace  their  implications  to 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  97 

their  singular  consequences,  and  then,  as  a  cor- 
rective, to  their  mingled  consequences;  if  we  seek 
to  discover  their  affinities  and  adjust  their  alH- 
ances;  if  we  balance  their  inferences  with  all  their 
constitutive  elements;  if  we  try  to  reach  the  inter- 
dependence of  all  their  parts,  we  shall  perceive 
how  they  shine  with  interior  light.  They  are 
rightly  open  to  speculation  if  we  are  already  be- 
lievers. As  the  Church  first  received  the  fliith 
and  then  reasoned  upon  it,  so  must  we.  We  must 
remember  that  they  rest  on  the  authority  of 
God,  and  that  they  do  not  contradict,  however 
much  they  may  transcend,  our  reason.  The  duty 
of  learning  in  order  to  believe  is  secondary  only 
to  that  of  believing  in  order  to  learn.  St.  Anselm 
said,  "  When  we  have  arrived  at  faith,  it  is  a  piece 
of  negligence  to  stop  short  of  convincing  our- 
selves, by  the  aid  of  thought,  of  that  to  which  we 
have  p^iven  credence."  Within  the  circle  of  Cath- 
olic  influence  we  do  not  need  to  dread  specula- 
tion. The  essence  of  rationalism  consists,  not  in 
making  reason  a  judge  of  evidejice  and  a  student 
of  revealed  truth,  but  in  making  it  independent  of 
authority.  If  a  man  judges  concerning  the  Incar- 
nation that  it  is  impossible,  he  is  a  Rationalist; 
but  if  he  tries  to  satisfy  his  reason  so  far  as  he 
may,  why  God  became  man,  accepting  the  fact 
because  it  is  revealed  to  the  Church,  he  is  no 
Rationalist.     He  believes  that  whatever  is  revealed 


98  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

must  be  true,  like  its  Divine  Revealer,  and  he  may 
go  on  reverently  to  seek  cut  its  meaning,  glad 
when  he  is  permitted  to  wade  somewhat  further 
into  the  doings  of  the  Most  High,  yet  content 
when  the  guide  Revelation  will  conduct  the  pupil 
Reason  no  further.  The  theologian  speculates, 
but  he  remembers   that   the   Church  alone  may 


dogmatize. 


IV. 


The  Creeds  are  the  inheritance  of  all  portions 
alike  of  the  Apostolic  Church.  It  is  therefore  a 
matter  for  deep  regret  that  the  East  and  the 
West  should  declare  the  Nicene  faith  with  even 
a  single  variation.  The  phrase  "  and  the  Son  " 
added  in  the  Article  concerning  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  descriptive  of  His  Eternal  Procession,  Span- 
ish in  its  origin,  accepted  only  in  the  West  and 
never  used  by  the  East,  has  always  been  a  grave 
scandal  to  the  Oriental  mind.  It  is  no  doubt  a 
difference  of  language  only,  since  all  Christians  ac- 
knowledge the  Deity  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  it  is 
not  supposed  by  the  Western  Church  to  imply 
that  He  proceeds  from  the  Son  as  from  a  Fountain 
in  the  same  manner  in  which  He  proceeds  from 
the  Father.  We  cannot  attain  to  reunion  apart 
from  the  ancient  Churches  of  the  East,  but  so  long 
as  those  Churches  suppose  the  West  to  mean  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Son  as  from 


THE  TWO  CREEDS.  99 

the  Original  Source  in  the  Godhead  they  will 
never  come  to  terms.  Either  the  West  must  be 
willing  to  give  up  the  phrase  as  not  being  of  uni- 
versal reception,  or  the  East  must  accept  it  on 
condition  of  the  maintenance  throughout  the 
world  of  its  true  theological  interpretation  as 
meaning  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the 
Father  through  the  Son.  Except  for  that  single 
discord  there  is  a  perfect  harmony  of  faith,  so  far 
as  the  Nicene  symbol  can  express  it,  in  all  parts 
of  the  Catholic  world.  One  voice  there  is  heard 
daily  proclaiming  from  tens  of  thousands  of  altars 
the  unchangeable  convictions  of  Christ's  visible 
body  on  earth.  How  is  that  voice  affected  by  the 
existence  in  particular  portions  of  the  Church  of 
doctrinal  standards  such  as  the  Athanasian  Hymn, 
which,  though  almost  universal  in  the  West,  has 
never  prevailed  to  any  general  extent  in  the  East, 
and  as  the  Trent  decrees  and  the  XXXIX  Articles  ? 
We  know  how  conscientious  men  feel  bound  in  their 
several  Communions  by  such  expressions  of  the 
more  restricted  and  subjective  doctrinal  life  in 
those  Communions,  if  not  in  the  same  degree  as 
they  feel  bound  by  the  ancient  Creeds,  yet  still  in 
a  sense  more  or  less  defined  to  themselves. 

When  we  enter  a  beautiful  ciiurch  we  arc  at 
once  struck  by  the  general  harmony  of  tone  pre- 
vailing within  it.  There  is  a  light  there  unlike 
the  Hght  we  see  anywhere  else.     It  is  not  the  light 


lOO  ■  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

of  the  open  sky,  nor  that  of  any  houses  we  are  ac- 
customed to  enter.     It  is  a  light  peculiar  to  that 
particular  building.     It  is  caused  by  the  harmoni- 
zation of  what  streams  through  the  windows  with 
what  dwells  in  the  stone  and  wood  and  painted 
wall.     When  we  stand  before  a  single  window 
and  study  its  colors,  its  haloed  forms,  its  mystic 
symbols,  and  the  meaning  that  underlies  it  all, 
we  see  how  different  it  is  from  the  window  we 
have  just  passed  and  from  the  window  we  just 
casually  glance  at  beyond,  in  fact  from  any  other 
window  in  the   church.     Yet  its  character   and 
tone  go  to  the  making  up  of  the  peculiar  quality 
of  artistic  and  satisfying  beauty  we  drink  in  with 
pensive  eyes.     But  a  study  of  effects  will  enable 
the  artist  to  determine  whether  a  lighter  tint  here 
would  help  the  general  harmony,  or  a  darker  there. 
The  entire  character  of  the  interior  may  be  modi- 
fied by  simple  but  subtle  changes.      In  like  man- 
ner we  enter  the  great  Apostolic  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ.     One  great  window  there  is,  more  dazzling 
and  elorious  than  the  others,  like  that  east  window 
in  Gloucester  Cathedral,  in  which  the  glass  is  "  not 
only  translucent,  but  is  itself  actually  luminous 
with  innumerable   minute  centres   of    radiation," 
because  the   "body  of  the  glass  is  full  of  minute 
air  bubbles,   each   of  which  holds  the  light   and 
then  reflects  it  out  from  the  interior  of  the  glass." 
That  is  the  Creed  window  which  gathers  and  sheds 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  lOI 

the  Scripture  glory  that  falls  from  the  sun  in  the 
firmament  above.  The  other  windows  are  the  de- 
crees and  catechisms  and  ofifice-books  of  the  vari- 
ous portions  of  the  Church.  That  Creed  window 
was  framed  and  fashioned  by  the  universal  wis- 
dom of  the  Christian  mind;  these  others  by  iso- 
lated and  estranged  parts  of  it.  There  is  a  certain 
harmony  withal,  but  all  these  side-lights  must  be 
brought  entirely  into  tone  with  the  great  light  and 
with  one  another.  All  interpretations  of  the  past 
must  be  assimilated  to  the  old  expression  of  the 
Catholic  mind.  Each  portion  of  the  Church  must 
submit  to  the  united  skill  of  all.  Modifications 
must  take  place,  but  no  true  work  of  spiritual 
truth  needs  to  be  sacrificed.  The  work  has  to  be 
done  not  by  particular  churches  either  for  them- 
selves or  for  others;  but  by  all  the  elect,  keeping 
in  view  the  fact  that  each  may  learn  from  all  in 
perfect  submission  to  the  guiding  Spirit  of  truth 
and  love. 

It  may  be  the  notion  of  many  who  dream  of  re- 
union that  it  will  bring  with  it  the  excision  from 
the  realm  of  doctrine  of  all  liturgies,  confessions, 
articles  of  doctrine,  decrees  of  councils,  writings  of 
"  Catholic  fathers  and  ancient  bishops  ";  but  is  it 
not  much  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  with 
the  quickened  intellect  and  fervent  affection  of  a 
reunited  Church,  men's  hold  of  the  principles  of 
truth   would   be   so   intensified    that   the\'    would 


I02  THE  TWO  CREEDS. 

gather  new  light  from  every  quarter,  while  purg- 
ing from  error  their  then  common  possession  of  a 
whole  world  of  doctrinal  literature  ?  The  Creeds 
must  always  remain  what  they  are,  but  can  never 
be  restrained  from  bearing  fruit  in  ever  new  and 
glorious  forms  of  prayer  and  worship  and  saintly 
teaching. 

The  Church  will  not  have  a  new  faith,  but  she 
will  always  be  apprehending  more  profoundly  the 
old  faith.  She  will  be  always  applying  her  faith 
in  the  production  of  richer  and  riper  thoughts  to 
the  exigencies  of  human  life  and  the  growing 
hopes  of  celestial  pilgrims.  Reunion  cannot  bring 
about  a  logical  and  practical  divorce  between 
what  is  fundamental  and  essential,  and  what  is 
not.  Experience  proves  that  positive  principles, 
on  which  alone  reunion  can  be  cemented,  carry 
with  them  the  seeds  of  very  far-reaching  effects. 
Even  granting  that  in  order  to  arrive  at  some  pos- 
sible basis  of  human  device  for  reunion  we  could 
make  the  hypothetical  distinction  real  and  work- 
able, it  would  vanish  and  be  forgotten  when  the 
reunion  had  taken  place.  It  is  one  thing  to  think 
we  see  clearly  the  distinction,  and  it  is  quite  an- 
other to  test  the  folly  and  peril  of  actually  making 
the  separation  between  the  essential  and  that 
which  grows  out  of  it  and  is  rooted  in  its  very  life 
and  worthily  shadows  it  forth.  Some  of  the  most 
unessential  parts  of  a  system  perform  a  delicate 


THE  TWO  CREEDS.  1 03 

office  in  making  known  the  inward  truth  and  re- 
ality of  the  essential.  The  Christian  Year,  for  in- 
stance, would  not  be  considered  by  anybody,  I 
suppose,  essential  to  the  Church's  existence,  but 
what,  among  all  the  contrivances  of  men,  could 
take  its  place  as  an  instructor  in  the  great  princi- 
ples of  the  Creeds  ? 

If  reunion  ever  comes  within  the  limits  of 
reasonable  expectation,  we  cannot  be  blind  to  the 
lessons  we  have  learned  from  our  own  past.  We 
must  conserve  many  things  which  have  grown  up 
with  us  and  which  once  our  Fathers  far  away  got 
on  without,  but  which,  now  that  they  have  natu- 
rally sprouted  from  our  Creeds,  cannot  be  shorn 
away  without  doing  an  injury  even  to  the  Creeds 
themselves.  Whence  comes  this  prevalent  fear 
of  doctrinal  statement?  Definition  is  an  evil  only 
when  carried  on  apart  from  the  traditional  life  of 
the  whole  past,  and  under  the  spell  of  individual- 
istic fancy.  "  Where  matters  have  not  been  de- 
fined," says  Bishop  Forbes  of  Brechin,  "  men  have 
generally  contented  themselves  with  the  lower 
view ;  ...  we  have  seen  how  the  faith  of  our 
own  Church  on  the  subjects  that  were  left  an  open 
question  has  shrivelled  and  withered  away."  * 
Definition  of  like  scope  and  dignity  with  that  of 
the  early  Councils  will  hardly  be  again,  but  defi- 

*  Explanation  of  the  Nicene  Creed,  Preface,  p.  vi. 


I04  THE  TWO  CREEDS. 

nition  on  a  great  scale,  comparable  to  the  best 
doctrinal  labors  of  the  sixteenth,  century,  will  sure- 
ly follow  reunion,  and  the  Church  will  choose  as 
her  authoritative  language  in  the  realms  of  an- 
thropology and  soteriology  adequate  expressions, 
already  doubtless  in  being,  to  be  raked  out  of  the 
embers  of  forgotten  learning,  or  discovered  in  the 
writings  of  our  great  divines. 

The  doctrinal  standards  peculiar  to  different 
portions  of  the  Church  of  Christ  have  all  had  their 
share  in  producing  the  types  of  holy  living  to  be 
found  in  those  portions.  Holy  men  of  different 
communions  do  not  indeed  differ  from  one  an- 
other in  their  characteristics  so  much  as  the  doc- 
trinal teachings  of  their  communions  differ,  but 
still  there  is  to  be  observed  a  tone,  a  fragrance,  a 
beauty  peculiar  to  some  which  cannot  be  found  in 
others.  The  page  which  records  the  triumphs  of 
Anglican  sainthood  is  the  fairest  in  Catholic  an- 
nals. We  do  not  need  to  apologize  to  any  others. 
We  have  nothing  to  fear  in  contrast  with  any 
others.  We  have  had  our  dark  times,  but  what 
Church  or  body  of  Christians  in  the  world  have 
not  had  theirs  }  and  I  believe  ours  have  been  not  a 
little  overdrawn.  Where  shall  we  find,  in  days 
ancient  or  modern,  in  climes  Northern  or  South- 
ern, so  glorious  a  type  of  piety  as  that  moulded  in 
the  Anglican  system — strong,  yet  tender,  manly, 
yet   full  of  sympathy,  judicious,    honest,    whole- 


THE  TWO  CREEDS.  105 

some,  gracious,  endued  with  sober  and  practical 
wisdom,  full  of  a  great  dignity  and  a  great  sim- 
plicity, restrained,  conservative,  truthful  in  the 
depths  of  its  spirit,  contrasting  to  its  own  infinite 
advantage  with  almost  any  other  types  in  Chris- 
tian history.  If  it  is  insular,  would  that  the  whole 
world  were  an  island  ! 

The  lamp  of  God  never  went  out  in  our  temple. 
What  meek  and  lowly  men  have  tended  its  pure 
flame  !  It  would  enchant  your  ears  were  I  to 
read  the  precious  diptychs.  Where  can  the  world 
equal  that  company  which  is  represented  by  such 
names,  to  mention  no  others,  as  Hooker  and  An- 
drewes  and  Herbert  and  Hall  and  Hammond  and 
Pearson  and  Sanderson,  Taylor  and  Bramhall, 
Ken  and  Cosin  and  Granville  and  Gilpin  and 
Bancroft  and  Wilson,  Bull  and  Beveridge,  Barrow 
and  Butler,  Jones  and  Cecil  and  Routh  and  Jolly 
and  Pusey  and  Keble  and  Liddon  ? 

Our  Anglican  mother  has  attributed  to  none  of 
these  maudlin  miracles  or  exaggerated  and  impos- 
sible virtues,  but  she  has  formed  them  by  her 
Prayer  Book,  her  vernacular  Scriptures,  her  paro- 
chial system,  her  learned  priesthood,  her  unmuti- 
lated  Eucharist,  her  incomparable  Catechism,  her 
family  life — in  a  word,  her  system.  Must  we  then 
give  up  a  system,  or  see  it  greatly  marred  and 
broken,  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  what  is,  after  all, 
not  sure  to  come — the  union  of  separated  Chris- 


lo6  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

tians  ?  Is  it  not  rather  our  duty  to  preserve  our 
heritage  for  the  sake  not  of  our  children  only, 
but  of  our  brethren  also,  who,  like  us,  are  of 
Anglo-Saxon  blood  and  should  have  the  blessings 
of  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  religion  ?  We  must  learn 
ourselves  from  others  what  has  seemed  good  and 
holy  in  their  eyes  and  be  ready  to  recognize  any- 
where the  varied  manifestations  of  God's  grace, 
but  when  we  read  our  own  history  and  see  what 
the  system  we  have  inherited  has  wrought,  we 
must  hesitate  and  think  long  before  we  begin  to 
break  up  the  timbers  in  our  walls,  if  not  some  of 
the  pavement  beneath  our  feet.  We  all  agree 
with  Barrow  that  there  are  **  points  of  less  mo- 
ment, more  obscurely  delivered,  in  which  Chris- 
tians may  dissent,  about  which  they  may  dispute, 
in  which  they  may  err,  without  breach  of  unity  or 
prejudice  to  charity."  *  But  let  us  ask.  What  has 
any  portion  of  the  Christian  world  to-day  to  give 
us  in  place  of  our  minor  beliefs  and  inferior  rites 
that  can  compare  with  them  in  real  practical 
efficiency  toward  producing  the  best  type  of  holi- 
ness in  our  members  ?  In  the  event  of  reunion  we 
could  not  expect  to  have  our  system  as  a  whole 
bound  upon  other  portions  of  Christendom,  nor 
to  escape  certain  modifications  ourselves  by  in- 
fluences to  which  we  could  then  oppose  no  barrier; 

*  Barrow  on  Unity  of  the    Church.    -Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  763, 
Ed.  of  1716. 


THE  TWO  CREEDS.  107 

but  we  need  not  be  over-fearful  that  in  such  an 
event  our  experience  of  the  very  positive  and 
superior  advantages  of  our  system  would  not  be 
widely  felt  and  recognized,  and  that  it  would  not 
more  than  neutralize  any  counter  influences. 
Rome  and  Constantinople  must  gain  from  Can- 
terbury far  more  than  they  can  ever  give  her;  not 
that  the  whole  Church  will  take  on  the  Anglican 
complexion,  but  because  the  sturdy  and  vigorous 
character  of  the  Anglican  type  must  have  a  far- 
reaching  permeation  when  once  allowed  equal 
limits  of  influence  with  other  and  less  noble  and 
more  feeble  types. 

With  reference  to  our  Christian  brethren,  whose 
fathers  went  out  from  us  in  the  past,  we  owe  a 
great  and  imperative  duty.  We  are  bound  to 
cherish  our  system,  not  out  of  a  selfish  pride  in  it, 
but  because  we  truly  believe  it  is  fitted  as  no  other 
system  is  to  promote  a  calm  and  deeply  religious 
character;  but  we  must  make  the  way  for  them  to 
join  with  us  as  easy  as  we  can.  They  have,  we 
think,  demonstrated  their  need  of  just  what  might 
be  called  our  peculiar  ways,  and  have  themselves 
answered  many  of  their  former  objections  to  our 
rites  and  ceremonies.  The  time  seems  ripe,  not 
for  giving  up  on  every  hand  what  has  made  us 
what  we  are,  but  for  keeping  our  birthright.  The 
tendency  to  the  separatist  idea  and  the  separatist 
system  has  another  tendency  to  Catholic  ideas 


loS  THE  TWO  CREEDS. 

and  usages  more  vital  and  enduring  than  itself  to 
take  account  of.  Our  wisdom  is  to  abide  in  our 
lot;  to  shun  the  unhealthy  and  belittling  in- 
fluences of  party  feeling;  to  look  for,  and  haste, 
not  unto  earthly  glories  and  religious  ostracisms 
and  degrees  of  arbitrary  holiness  graduated  to  de- 
grees of  ecclesiastical  rank,  but  unto  the  coming 
of  the  day  of  God. 

We  must  hold  fast  what  we  have,  but  we  must 
also  keep  in  men's  minds  that  the  Apostles'  Creed 
is  the  Baptismal  Creed,  and  that  already  all  the 
baptized  we  call  our  own.  We  must  lead  them 
on,  not  by  controversy,  but  by  the  example  of 
humility  and  love.  We  cannot  prefer  unity  to 
truth,  nor  compromise  to  the  culture  of  a  holy 
life.  Intensive  growth  is  the  Church's  first  duty, 
afterward  that  which  is  extensive.  But  we  can 
forget  past  differences,  and  look  forward  to  hap- 
pier and  brighter  days.  This,  which  may  seem  to 
many  a  narrow  and  painfully  inadequate,  but  I 
trust  not  a  selfish  or  bigoted,  view,  will  in  due 
time  prove  to  be  the  wisest  and  the  best. 

Even  for  the  sake  of  unity  we  cannot  listen  on 
the  one  hand  to  proved  imbecilities,  nor  on  the 
other  to  certain  degradation.  We  cannot  abide 
those  claims,  which,  even  after  the  false  decretals 
on  which  they  were  built  up  have  been  discredited 
in  their  native  fields,  are  still  gravely  put  forth 
with    unbashful    forehead    before   an   astonished 


THE  TWO  CREEDS.  109 

world;  neither  can  we  listen  to  possibilities  v/hich 
must  leave  us  a  sapless  and  inconsequent  simulacre 
of  Catholicity.  Our  plain  duty  is  to  forego  mystic 
dreams  of  a  golden  age,  and  to  keep  on  the  noise- 
less tenor  of  our  way.  If  superstitions,  inanities, 
extravagances,  have  mingled  with  Christian  teach- 
ing from  the  days  of  Hermas  to  those  of  Irving, 
and  from  the  Araxes  to  the  Rhine,  we  must  be 
prepared  still  to  behold  many  defects  in  the  vision 
of  a  militant  Church. 

The  Faith  has  survived  the  frantic  and  frigid 
philosophies  with  which  Christians  have  played, 
and,  untouched  in  its  pure  substance  by  optimism 
and  pessimism,  still  holds  forth  the  immaculate 
hope  of  life  eternal  through  the  love  of  God  and 
the  merits  of  our  Blessed  Redeemer;  and  we  may 
be  sure  it  will  burn  as  a  lamp  until  the  end. 
There  never  was  a  time  since  St.  Paul  wrote  to 
the  Galatians  when  there  were  not  sects  and  parties 
to  trouble  the  peace  of  Christians,  and  I  do  not 
know  why  it  should  ever  be  otherwise  so  long  as 
this  mortal  sphere  of  being  rolls  on  its  restless 
way.  We  are  to  labor  for  peace,  and  give  our- 
selves unto  prayer.  We  are  to  prove  our  religion 
by  our  lives,  and  then  God,  Who  doeth  all  things 
well,  will  bring  to  pass  His  strange  and  wondrous 
act,  whatever  it  may  be.  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
could  never  see  a  man  pray,  and  not  straightway 
fall  to  praying  for  him.      So  when  we  see  men 


no  THE  TWO  CREEDS. 

pray  and  lavish  their  gifts  on  missionary  fields, 
and  illustrate  Christ's  precepts  in  their  daily  walk, 
we  may  pray  and  give  thanks  likewise  that  God, 
Who  is  the  Father  of  us  all,  will  find  a  way  to 
glorify  His  Son  in  us  and  in  them  together  before 
the  eyes  both  of  angels  and  of  men. 

V. 

When  we  turn  the  facts  of  our  Christian  faith 
into  principles  of  our  Christian  life  we  see  their 
deeper  value  and  necessity.  For  what  do  they 
imply?  Not  Monism,  with  its  condonation  of 
human  infirmity ;  not  a  code  of  Ethics  grounded 
in  the  will  and  na*;ure  of  no  Eternal  and  Personal 
Being;  not  Positivism,  that  decayed  folly,  which 
told  us  that,  while  individual  men  perish  at  death, 
the  race  will  go  on  for  ever;  not  Materialism,  that 
spent,  insensate  dream,  which  cared  not  even  for 
the  race,  but  whose  one  obstinate  message  was  that 
physical  death  is  the  annihilation  of  thought ;  not 
Agnosticism,  which  now  seems  to  have  got  so  far 
as  to  admit  a  kind  of  inteUigence  in  the  Noumenon 
beyond  phenomena,  but  cannot  free  itself  from 
the  old  dictum  by  which  it  is  fascinated,  that 
there  can  be  no  communication  from  God  to  the 
world. 

The  Creeds  have  the  majestic  character  of  Him 
who  said  "  I  am  the  Truth,"  "  I  am  from  above." 
They  carry  with  them  the  atmosphere  of  an  eter. 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  ill 

nal  world.  "  God's  word  endureth  for  ever  in 
heaven,"  and  when  we  are  shewn  that  surface  and 
fringe  of  it  which,  in  our  finite  limitation  and 
present  mortality  we  are  capable  of  seeing,  our 
nature  revives  and  expands  under  the  benignant 
influence.  These  mighty  truths  which  the  Church 
teaches  abide  in  the  realm  of  the  unrevealed  even 
while  they  are  made  to  inhabit  the  realm  of  the 
revealed.  They  are  mysteries,  things,  that  is, 
Avhich  dwell  at  once  in  two  spheres,  a  heavenly 
and  an  earthly.  They  are  like  the  Person  of  Him 
Who  came  into  the  world  to  shew  us  the  Father. 
They  are  Divine  in  their  origin,  and  only  earthly 
in  their  manifestation.  What  sublimity  invests  the 
mind  which  adoringly  accepts  them !  They  are 
not  from  beneath.  They  are  not  spun  out  of  the 
brains  of  those  who  have  divested  themselves  so 
far  as  they  were  able  of  all  faith  in  the  revealed 
religion.  They  are  coals  from  the  heavenly  altar, 
whose  intrinsic  flame  glows  and  waxes  in  our 
sight  when  the  Spirit  of  illumination  breathes  oji 
them  as  we  pray.  They  are  validities,  not  de- 
pending on  time  for  their  existence  any  more 
than  the  distinctions  in  the  Godhead  depend  on 
Creation  or  Incarnation  or  the  Church  for  theirs, 
but  yet,  like  those  distinctions,  which  exhibit  them- 
selves in  Nature  and  Grace  and  the  Means  of 
Grace,  clothe  themselves  in  human  speech,  and 
make  even  the  stones  of  the  mountains  and  instru- 


112  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

ments  of  music  to  give  them  a  kind  of  utterance. 
Such  truths  lift  man's  thoughts  above  that  which 
is  merely  temporal.     They  tell  him  that  he  is  a 
part  of  an  enduring  system,  and  that  this  is  but 
"the  bud  of  being."     They  set  before  him  his 
whole  life,  and  not  a  part  of  it,  and  that  the  least 
worthy  part  of  it.     In  truth  they  set  forth  God  as 
the  life  of  men,  and  reveal  His  Being  as  eternal 
and  His  Nature  as  love.     They  shew  the  conde- 
scension of  God  in  the  Person  of  the  Son,  Who 
came  to  unite  heaven  and  earth  and  God  and  man, 
and  to  make  our  mortal  years  a  fair  image  of  His 
unspotted  eternity.     They  bring  the  message  of 
a  real  forgiveness  and  a  real  hope  to  all  who  will 
repent  and  believe.     They  open  the  gate  of  heav- 
en's kingdom  even  here  and  now.     They  do  not 
tell  man  merely  of  a  life  to  come,  but  mingle  that 
life  with  his  earthly  life.     They  do  not  tell  him  of 
promises  merely,  but  of  present  privileges.     They 
tell  him  not  only  of  the  first  Adam  created  in  sin- 
less liberty,  but  also  of  the  Second  Adam  brin<T- 
ing  perfect  attainment  into  view.     They  shew  him 
the   symmetry  and  ripeness  of  his  being— man 
brought  from  capacity  to  capability,  from  liberty 
to  freedom,  from  hope  to  fulfilment,  from  possi- 
bility to  attainment— they   exhibit    holiness   as 
the  matured  fruit  of  a  long  process  of  sanctifica- 
tion,  as  arrival  at  that  ultimate  stage  of  spiritual 
life  where  there  are  no  saUent  virtues  and  graces 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  113 

because  all  virtues  and  graces  complete  one  an- 
other; as  the  diffusion  of  spiritual  tone  through 
the  entire  life,  as  will  and  affections  and  intellect 
all  wrought  to  one  stedfast  strength  and  lustre, 
till  it  is  impossible  to  connect  more  or  less  of 
blessedness  with  one  than  with  another  part  of 
his  nature;  as  Nature's  discovered  equilibrium  and 
point  of  rest,  as  unity  of  life  in  itself  and  in  its 
Divine  original,  as  satisfaction  with  Christ's  glori- 
fied likeness,  as  fulness  of  joy  and  pleasure  for 
evermore. 

These  mysteries  of  our  faith  teach  that  holiness 
is  the  direct  effect  in  man's  nature  of  the  Holy 
Spirit's  working,  Who  dwells  in  Christ's  members, 
that  it  is  a  condition  which  implies,  supplements 
and  hallows  earthly  schemes  of  morality,  that  it 
is  a  supernatural  cause  affecting  the  entire  nature 
of  a  man,  that  it  is  man  dedicated  to  God  and  then 
consecrated  by  God,  and  using  his  natural  faculties 
in  a  supernatural  strength,  that  it  is  man  living 
under  the  monition  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  through 
the  continuous  impartation  of  vitality  from  that 
gracious  Guest,  that  it  is,  in  fine,  the  effect  of  the 
constant  ministration  of  Christ  to  man  by  the 
Spirit  which  dwelt  in  and  glorified  the  humanity 
of  Christ. 

Is  not  such  a  revealed  faith  fitted  to  lift  man  up 
for  ever,  especially  when  it  is  received  and  made 
his  own  by  means  of  the  ministries  of  grace?     As 


114  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

Keble  said  at  Winchester  in  1830,  "We  cannot 
separate  the  means  of  grace  from  the  doctrines  of 
grace."  Is  not  this  the  Faith  by  believing  which 
men  wrought  righteousness,  obtained  promises, 
quenched  the  violence  of  fire,  escaped  the  edge  of 
the  sword,  out  of  weakness  were  made  strong  ? 
Is  not  this  the  Faith  needed  in  the  world  to-day, 
when  there  is  certainly  a  recrudescence  of  Pagan 
ideals  and  sentiments,  when  there  are  multitudes 
in  Christian  lands  who  hear  no  longer  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Catholic  faith,  but  are  entertained  by 
incoherent  magnificences  and  undigested  hypothe- 
ses, and  with  heresies  taken  bodily  out  of  Valen- 
tinian  workshops,  or  imbibed  in  "the  tents  of 
Pelagius  "  ? 

Christ  incarnate,  crucified,  glorified;  Christ  in 
us  the  hope  of  glory ;  Christ,  revealing  the 
Father  and  ministered  by  His  Holy  Spirit;  Christ, 
uniting  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  in 
Himself,  is  the  only  hope  of  man.  Him  the  Church 
adores,  Him  the  Creeds  confess,  Him  the  Scrip- 
tures delineate,  Him  the  Sacraments  convey.  Him 
the  Apostolic  priesthood  represents,  Him  the 
world  desires.  Him  the  sinful  need,  Him  the 
saints  follow,  Him  the  Father  loves. 

The  Creeds  that  guard  and  set  forth  the  ineffa- 
ble truth  concerning  Him  are  of  priceless  value, 
both  in  themselves  and  in  their  history.  The 
Catholic  Church  can  never  part  with  these.     It  is 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  115 

inconceivable  that  the  least  word  in  them  will  ever 
be  exscinded.  They  are  sacred  symbols,  because 
they  are  the  Church's  deliberate  witness  to  the 
truth  of  Christ's  Person  and  grace. 

VI. 

The  Church  of  which  we  are  members  is  a  part 
of  the  visible  Catholic  Church  throughout  all  the 
world.  It  believes  that  the  Church  is  a  Divine 
structure,  built  on  Jesus  Christ  our  only  Saviour, 
and  animated  by  His  Spirit  of  truth  and  -holiness. 
It  does  not  imagine  that  the  Church's  truest  and 
deepest  unity  has  ever  been  broken,  but  only  that 
its  perfect  outward  form  has  been  impaired  in  the 
course  of  the  Christian  centuries.  It  does  not  at- 
tempt to  affirm  that  external  unity  is  any  longer 
a  fact.  It  believes  that  such  unity  should,  by  God's 
help,  be  restored.  But  it  cannot  exhibit  or  invent 
any  hypothetical  or  tentative  basis  for  Christians 
to  stand  on  together.  It  can  only  point  to  the 
foundations  laid  long  ago.  The  Anglican  Com- 
munion cannot  depart  from  the  principles  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  of  which  she  is  a  sound  and  liv- 
ing part.  She  is  subject  to  the  Church  in  its  un- 
divided capacity,  so  that  whatever  it  has  at  any 
time  professed,  she  must  profess  ;  and  whatever 
it  has  at  any  time  rejected,  she  must  reject. 
She  cannot  have  anything  to  do  with  laying  a 
foundation  for   reunion,  or  for   Christian  unity,  if 


Ii6  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

by  that  is  meant  a  federation  of  Christian  organ- 
izations. For  the  foundation  standeth  sure.  Un- 
less the  beUevers  everywhere  will  look  on  Catholic 
principles  not  as  separable  bases,  any  number  of 
which  may  be  taken  to  build  upon,  but  as  essen- 
tial one  to  another,  and  as  all  standing  or  falling 
together,  and  as  carrying  with  them  the  interpre- 
tation which  their  whole  history  affords  of  them, 
we  must  be  content  to  wait.  Our  Church  has  the 
future  in  her  hands  if  only  she  can  be  patient  and 
be  true  to  herself.  She  must  sacrifice  present 
palpability  to  future  reality.  She  must  be  par- 
doned for  looking  at  this  matter  from  within  and 
not  from  without.  She  is  eighteen  hundred  years 
of  age,  and  her  memory  teems  with  her  history  in 
all  its  parts  and  periods.  Side-lights  from  forgot- 
ten ages  teach  her  a  theory  of  conservatism  scarcely 
to  be  appreciated  by  those  whose  roots  do  not  run 
through  all  the  past.  We  may  be  sure  that  when 
the  Protestant  bodies  are  ready  to  receive  the 
Historic  Episcopate,  they  will  be  ready  also  to 
accept  in  the  main  what  in  the  course  of  time  has 
grown  up  with  and  out  of  that  Episcopate.  We 
cannot  afford  to  risk  internal  schism  for  the  sake 
of  obtaining  what  at  best  might  be  a  temporary 
union  of  some  Christian  societies.  We  cannot 
give  up  certainties  for  uncertainties. 

*'  The  dog  that   snapt   the  shadow    dropt   the 
bone."     The   four   propositions  of  the    Anglican 


THE   TWO  CREEDS.  117 

Bishops,  if  read  in  their  bare  outline,  are  untena- 
ble and  must  remain  unfruitful.  If  looked  at  with 
an  eye  to  their  history,  they  will  be  found  to 
carry  a  necessarily  Catholic  and  historic  interpre- 
tation. The  Bishops  meant,  no  doubt,  to  hint  at 
concessions  and  accommodations ;  they  never 
could  have  meant  that  there  is  no  universal  and 
well-known  doctrine  of  a  visible  Kingdom  of  our 
Redeemer  among  men,  having  authority  in  mat- 
ters of  faith;  and  that  there  is  no  universal  and 
well-known  doctrine  of  sacramental  grace  and 
Apostolic  orders  and  Scriptural  interpretation. 
Men  in  general  must  have  a  more  profound  knowl- 
edge of  the  Christian  past,  until  they  can  breathe 
its  atmosphere  and  see  with  its  eyes,before  they  can 
safely  approach  this  question  of  unity.  Walter 
Savage  Landor  told  us  that  we  must  see  through 
former  ages  before  we  can  see  through  our  own. 
We  do  not  want  the  accidental  past,  but  the  essen- 
tial. We  do  not  Avish  to  restore  Mediaevalism, 
nor  Byzantinism;  but  we  want  to  live  our  modern 
American  life  with  the  wisdom  which  eighteen 
centuries  of  Christian  thought  and  culture  have 
accumulated.  Our  work  is  in  the  present,  but 
our  experience  is  in  the  past.  We  do  not  wish 
to  forget  either  our  duty  or  our  education.  The 
present  age  differs  from  past  ages  only  in  the  acci- 
dental shows  of  things.  The  heart  of  the  world 
is  the  same  it  always  was.     The  need  of  the  world 


iiS  THE   TWO  CREEDS. 

is  the  same  it  always  was.  We  may  profit  by  the 
failures  as  well  as  by  the  successes  of  our  fathers. 
Let  us  not  be  led  away  in  so  great  a  matter  by 
emotion.  Let  us  not  anticipate  the  order  of 
Divine  Providence.  Let  us  not  build  a  tower  until 
v/e  know  whether  we  can  finish  it.  Let  us  not 
mistake  our  hopes  for  realities.  You  will  re- 
member that  when  Israel,  Judah  and  Edom 
together  opposed  the  Moabites,  they  filled  some 
trenches  with  water,  which,  reddened  by  the 
morning  sun,  seemed  in  the  eyes  of  the  latter 
from  the  heights  above  like  pools  of  blood.  Sup- 
posing their  foes  to  have  quarrelled  with  and  slain 
one  another,  they  sallied  down  toplunderthecamp 
and  were  defeated.  We  want  hope  and  zeal,  but 
we  want  also  a  sober  judgment.  We  want  unity 
but  we  want  to  be  sure  no  rotten  beams  or  crum- 
bling stones  get  into  the  foundation.  We  want, 
before  all,  humility  and  patience;  humility,  that 
we  may  not  trust  ourselves  too  far  where  vast 
issues  are  at  stake,  and  patience,  that  we  may 
bear  with  the  ignorant  and  self-willed.  In  a  word, 
we  want  by  God's  unspeakable  mercy  the  gift  of 
a  sound  and  loving  mind  to  seek  and  set  forward 
His  Kingdom  among  men  in  the  fulness  of  its 
privileges,  in  the  greatness  of  its  design,  in  the 
untold  might  of  all  its  healing  and  renewing 
power. 


Z\)c  Zxoo  Great  Sacramento, 


LECTURE  IV. 

VEN.   A.    ST.    JOHN   CHAMBRE,    D.D., 

ARCHDEACON  OF  LOWELL,  AND  DEAN  OF   CONVOCATION. 

THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  founded  the  Christian 
Church.  It  was  potential  in  Him  in  all  its  fulness, 
and  in  all  its  divine  prerogatives,  powers  and  in- 
fluences, for  all  the  world  and  for  all  the  ages. 
He  called,  taught,  trained,  disciplined,  a  college 
of  Apostles,  to  promulgate  what  He  delivered 
unto  them,  to  do  what  He  commanded  should  be 
done,  to  evangelize  the  nations,  to  build  up  the 
Church,  His  Church.  The  Church  was  complete 
in  the  essentials  of  its  organization,  while  our 
Lord  lived  on  earth.  He  completed  His  teach- 
ing, and  perfected  the  organization,  it  may  be  af- 
firmed, during  those  memorable  days  between  the 
Resurrection  and  the  Ascension.  On  the  Day  of 
Pentecost,  in  accordance  with  His  promise  and 
prophecy,  the  Holy  Ghost  descended  upon  the 
Church,  to  abide  with  it  for  ever,  and  to  lead  it 


122  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

into  all  truth.  Beginning  at  Jerusalem,  then, 
thousands  were  converted,  and  there  were  added 
to  the  Church  daily  those  who  were  in  the  proc- 
ess of  being  saved,  and  these  all  "continued 
steadfastly  in  the  Apostles'  doctrine  and  fellow- 
ship, and  in  the  breaking  of  the  bread,  and  in  the 
prayers."  Thence  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom 
spread,  throughout  Judea,  in  Samaria,  across  the 
mountains  into  Asia  Minor,  beyond  the  Euphrates 
eastward,  across  the  ^Egean  Sea  into  Greece, 
thence  into  Italy,  even  into  great  Rome  itself,  and 
westward  into  Spain  and  beyond.  Within  thirty 
years,  substantially,  all  this  was  accomplished,  and 
before  a  line  of  the  New  Testament  was  written. 
It  was  the  New  Jerusalem  let  down  from  God  out 
of  Heaven.  It  soon  changed  the  face  of  the 
world.  In  the  world,  it  was  not  of  the  world — it 
was  everywhere  a  divine  kingdom  within  every 
earthly  kingdom. 

Thus,  the  Christian  Church  is  a  divine,  not  a 
human,  institution.  It  is  not  a  voluntary  associa- 
tion or  guild,  such  as  men  may  make  or  unmake, 
with  which  they  may  or  may  not  connect  them- 
selves with  no  vital  consequences  in  either  case, 
or  which  they  may  erect  or  strike  down  at  pleasure. 
It  is  the  Church  of  the  living  God,  built  upon  foun- 
dations of  prophets  and  apostles,  Jesus  Christ  Him- 
self being  the  chief  Corner-Stone,  and  the  promise 
and  assurance  is,  that  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  pre- 


THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  123 

vail  against  it.  This  divinely  constituted  Church, 
this  kingdom  of  God  in  the  world,  is  called,  his- 
torically, Holy,  Apostolic  and  Catholic. 

Holy — as  set  apart,  separate  from  the  world, 
from  the  world-spirit,  and  all  that  dominates  the 
world,  and  sanctified  to  God,  and  to  all  pure  and 
blessed  usages  and  purposes.  It  trains  immortal 
souls  spiritually.  It  conserves  the  knowledge, 
and  worship,  and  service  of  God. 

Apostolic — because  built  upon  the  Apostles  as 
upon  foundation-stones.  The  Apostles  carried 
everywhere  the  Gospel,  and  planted  everywhere 
the  Church,  organized  into  congregations  of  the 
faithful.  They  transmitted  the  orders,  teachings, 
mission  and  jurisdiction  committed  to  them,  in  a 
line  that  has  not  been  broken  for  a  moment  from 
the  beginning.  Apostolic  government,  discipline, 
doctrine,  fellowship,  sacramental  rites  and  meth- 
ods, make  the  Church  apostolic,  to  all  of  which 
witness  the  New  Testament,  the  oecumenical 
councils,  the  great  bishops  and  doctors,  east  and 
west,  and  all  sacred  history  from  the  days  when 
the  Church  began. 

Catholic.  The  blessed  Lord  gave  a  religion  for 
the  world.  It  is  a  religioH  greater  and  better  than 
the  world  possessed  before,  or  has  possessed  since 
apart  from  it.  Judaism  was  racial,  national,  nec- 
essarily and  inevitably.  The  chosen  people  Avere 
called  out  of  the  world  to  be  in  covenant  relations 


124  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

with  God,  thus  witnesses  to  Him  as  the  one  true 
God,  and  a  preparation   for  the  day  of  the  Lord. 
Judaism  gave  way,  as  it  was  not  and  could  not  be 
Catholic.     No  Pagan  system  ever  was  or  could  be 
Catholic — it  could  be  but  tribal,  or,  at  the  most, 
national.     But  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  Church, 
is  to  compass  all  nations  and  kindreds  and  tribes 
and  peoples,  that   every  knee  may  bow  to  God, 
and  every  tongue  confess   to  Him.     Jesus  Christ 
is  the  Lis^ht  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,  as  well  as  the 
glory  of  His  people  Israel.     His  commission  is: — 
*'  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  Gospel 
to  every  creature."     "  The  Church,"  St.  Cyril  tells 
us,  "  is  called  Catholic,  because  it  extends  through 
all  the  world,  from  one  end  of  the  earth  to  the 
other."     But  this  is  not  all  that  is  involved  in  the 
word  Catholic.      The    word    Church   defines   the 
word  CatJiolic  as  really  as  the  word  Catholic  de- 
scribes the  Church.     The  Church  is  a  divine  and 
visible  organization,  not  an  idea,  or  condition,  in- 
tangible, invisible,  inorganic.     It  has  its  divinely 
called   and   consecrated    Ministry,    instituted   by 
Jesus  Christ.     This  Ministry  is  self-perpetuating, 
three-fold  in  character,  bishops  (as  successors  of 
the    Apostles),    priests   and   deacons.     It   has  a 
specific  doctrine  or  system  of  doctrines,  called  the 
Gospel,  which,  as  communicated  explicitly  or  im- 
plicitly by  the  blessed  Lord,  is  His,  and  like  Him- 
self is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  for  ever.     It 


THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  125 

cannot  be  changed,  but  in  its  essential  features 
and  statements  of  facts  remains  unalterable  from 
generation  to  generation,  unto  the  end  of  time. 
This  Gospel  may  be  called  old.     It  is  old — old  as 
the  purpose  of  God  to  save  a  fallen,  sinful  race — 
old  as  the  time  when  His  eternal  and  only  Son 
took  upon   Him  our  nature,  and  was  born  of  a 
pure  Virgin,  that  He  might  unite  humanity  with 
Himself,  and  offer  propitiation  and  atonement  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  race.     But  the   Gospel  re- 
mains for  ever  new,  for  it  applies  to  each  genera- 
tion as  it  comes  and  goes,  for  its  spiritual  life  and 
salvation.     Nothing  can  be  added  to  it  or  taken 
from  it.     There  can  be  nothing  read  into  it  that 
does  not,  by  the  consentient  voice  of  the  Church, 
belong  to  it,  and  nothing  can  be  read  out  of  it  that 
from  the  beginning  was  put  there  by  the  Holy 
Giiost.     There  is  no  new  Gospel,  and  there  can- 
not be.     What  is  true  in  Christianity  is  true  from 
the  beginning,  and  is  not  new.     What  is  new,  in 
the  sense  of  being  otherwise  than  Christianity  has 
ever  been,  is  not  true.     The  Catholic  Church  holds 
the  Faith  and  Order  and  Polity  which  were  in  the 
beginning,  the  same  everywhere,  and  always,  and 
continually.     Where  this  Faith,  Order  and  Polity 
obtain,  there  is  the  Catholic  Church.     "  Catholic  " 
means  not  only  universality,  and  thus  comprehen- 
siveness, but  apostolic  doctrine  and  fellowship  and 
discipline.     It  is,  therefore,  exclusive  as  well  as 


126  THE    TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

inclusive.  It  excludes  those  who  reject  the  faith — 
rather  they  exclude  themselves.  The  Holy,  Apos- 
tolic, Catholic  Church  does  not  include  heresy,  and 
cannot  comprehend  it  within  its  system. 

Again,  Catholicity  stands  for  unity.  The 
Church  is  One,  naturally  and  inevitably.  For  a 
thousand  years  this  oneness  prevailed.  Then, 
owing  to  geographical  and  political  conditions 
mainly,  and  in  a  measure  to  differences  which 
gradually  developed,  this  oneness,  outwardly, 
ceased  to  exist,  and  the  Church  was  known  as 
Eastern  or  Western,  Greek  or  Latin.  Then  the 
Western  or  Latin  Church  was  riven,  and,  outwardly, 
communion  ceased  between  the  Roman  and  An- 
glican expressions  of  the  Church.  But  whatever 
the  conditions,  and  however  apart  these  Com- 
munions may  appear  to  be,  they  each  and  all  pre- 
serve those  essential  features  stamped  upon  the 
Church  in  the  beginning  by  Our  Blessed  Lord 
and  His  Apostles.  With  whatever  variations, 
they  continue  in  the  Apostolic  Doctrine  and  Fel- 
lowship, and  in  the  breaking  of  the  Bread,  and  in 
the  prayers.  They  constitute  the  outward,  visi- 
ble, organic,  historic  Church  of  the  Living  God — 
and  practically  dominate  the  Christian  world.  Our 
own  Anglican  Branch,  having  its  roots  in  England 
since  the  second  century  after  Christ,  long  before 
there  was  an  organized  and  consolidated  English 
nation,  may  well  be  taken— is  taken  by  ourselves — 


THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  127 

as  the  purest  and  nearest  akin  to  the  primitive 
times.  To  its  standard,  the  other  great  Branches 
will,  in  God's  time  and  way,  undoubtedly  draw 
nigh.  There  will  be  no  Christian  unity  otherwise. 
It  occupies  a  vantage  ground  to  this  end,  which 
Greek  and  Latin  are  more  and  more,  however 
sometimes  ungraciously  and  however  slowly,  con- 
fessing in  explicit  or  in  implicit  terms. 

Thus  far,  we  have  the  Church  set  before  us  as  a 
divinely  instituted,  visible,  organic  Body,  with  a 
divinely     instituted     Ministry,    and    a     divinely 
enunciated  doctrine   or  teaching.     Through  this 
organism,  this  Church,  God  is  acting  upon  the 
world  to  save  the  world  and  to  bring  it  to  Him- 
self, redeemed  in  Jesus  Christ.     For  definite  pur- 
poses which  will  unfold  themselves,  the  Church 
has  possessed,  from  the  first,  certain  characteristic, 
outward,  visible,  in  essential  features  unvarying, 
actions.      They  are  vital,  integral  factors  in  the 
very  being   of  the    Church,    conserving    its    life 
and  teaching,  and  enabling  it  to  be  effective  in 
the  spiritual  uplifting  of  human  souls.     We  call 
these  **  Sacraments."     I  am  to  speak  of  "  The  Two 
Great    Sacraments."      These    Sacraments    have 
been  ordained  by  Jesus  Christ,  the  Great  Head  of 
the  Church,  and  by   Him  it  is  commanded  that 
they  shall  be   continually   administered   by  the 
Church  to  the  end  of  the  ages.     As  these  were 
not  originated  by  men,  but  by  Our  Blessed  Lord, 


128  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

they  are  not  subject  to  the  will  of  men.  They  are 
also  unchangeable,  in  any  way  that  may  affect 
their  essential  nature  or  purpose,  by  any  man,  or 
any  body  of  men,  or  even  by  the  Church  itself. 
They  are  to  be  retained,  observed,  administered, 
as  the  Lord  directed,  in  the  form  and  with  the 
matter  (elements)  ordained  by  Him.  They  enter 
thus  into  the  very  constitution  of  the  Church. 
The  Bishops  of  the  Anglican  Communion  specifi- 
cally recognize  this.  These  Sacraments  are  part 
of  the  Deposit  entrusted  to  the  Episcopate,  "  to 
be  ministered  with  unfailing  use  of  Christ's  words 
of  institution,  and  of  the  elements  ordained  by 
Him."  They  are  thus  made  an  essential  article 
to  be  accepted  as  a  basis  upon  which  there  can  be 
any  hope  of  ever  effecting  Christian  unity,  or  of 
conserving  the  integrity  of  the  One,  Holy,  Cath- 
olic, Apostolic  Church. 

WHAT   IS  A  SACRAMENT? 

The  Latin  Sacramentum  refers  to  a  military 
oath  of  obedience  and  allegiance.  The  taking  of 
this  oath  was  often  attended  with  much  of  re- 
ligious ceremony,  to  make  it  the  more  impressive 
and  awe-inspiring.  To  violate  that  oath  would 
be  treason,  the  greatest  crime  of  which  a  soldier 
could  be  guilty.  As  binding  obligations  are  taken 
by  Christians  to  their  Lord,  both  in  Holy  Baptism 
and  the  Holy  Eucharist,  there  is  seen  at  once  the 


THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  1 29 

force  and  the  propriety  of  this  word  as  used  by  the 
Church,  The  word  Sacramenttwt,  moreover,  is 
the  equivalent  of  the  Greek  i-warypiov  or  "  mys- 
tery." This  word  the  Church  used  from  the  begin- 
ning. The  language  of  the  Church,  at  the  first, 
crystallized  in  the  Greek.  The  New  Testament 
was  written  in  Greek  ;  the  early  Liturgies  were 
Greek;  it  was  the  language  of  the  intercourse  of 
the  Eastern  world.  As  Christianity  passed  to 
the  West,  and  took  root  among  Latin-speaking 
peoples,  a  change  took  place.  The  Bible  was  ren- 
dered into  Latin.  The  great  Western  Fathers 
began  to  write  in  that  tongue — it  became  the 
Church  language  of  the  West,  and  so  continues  in 
the  Roman  obedience  unto  this  day.  The  Greek 
still  continues  the  Church  language  of  the  East. 
The  Anglican  Church,  as  a  part  of  the  Western 
Church,  has  rendered  its  services  into  English, 
but  borrows  naturally  many  of  its  terms  from  the 
Latin.  By  the  Greek,  ixvarr^piov  was  applied  to 
any  service  to  which  only  the  initiated,  or  those 
properly  prepared,  were  admitted.  The  idea  of  a 
great,  spiritual  meaning,  not  known  to  nor  dis- 
cernible by  everybody,  was  at  the  root  of  this 
usage.  Holy  Baptism  was  a  mystery,  for  the  re- 
ception and  understanding  of  which,  on  the  part  of 
adults,  preparation  was  essential — and  only  the 
baptized  could  be,  or  ever  were,  admitted  to  the 
Holy   Eucharist.      Precisely   this    was   the   idea 


130  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

in  the  West,  and  in  this  way  the  West  used  the 
word  Sacramentum. 

The  Greek  Church  recognizes  seven  sacraments: 
so  does  the  Western  Church.  These  are  Holy- 
Baptism,  Confirmation,  the  Holy  Eucharist,  Holy 
Orders,  Matrimony,  Penance,  and  Extreme  Unc- 
tion. Neither  in  the  Greek  Church,  however,  nor  in 
the  Roman,  is  the  same  emphasis  laid  upon  each  of 
these:  there  are  the  greater  and  the  lesser.  There 
are  two  that  rise  above  all  the  rest — Holy  Baptism 
and  the  Supper  of  the  Lord.  We  are  concerned 
in  this  lecture  with  these  only.  Now  the  general 
Christian  definition  of  a  Sacrament  in  its  highest 
phase  is,  that  it  is  "  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
an  inward  and  spiritual  grace,"  or,  as  it  is  called 
by  St.  Augustine,  "  the  sign  of  a  sacred  thing." 
These  two  Sacraments  are  declared  as  "  generally 
necessary  to  salvation  "' — in  the  explanation  of 
which  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say,  that  they  are 
necessary  to  salvation,  if  they  can  be  obtained. 
These  two  were  assuredly  and  specifically  insti- 
tuted by  the  Blessed  Saviour  Himself,  and  were 
commanded  by  Him  to  be  used  in  His  Church 
for  ever.  *'  He  that  is  baptized,"  He  declares, 
"shall  be  saved."  His  command  to  His  Apostles 
was  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  .  .  .  baptizing 
...  in  the  Name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  "  This  do,"  or  "  offer," 
He  directed  the  Apostles,  when  He  instituted  the 


THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  131 

Holy  Eucharist,  by  taking  bread  and  breaking  it 
— "this  do,  in  remembrance  of  me."  "  Drink  all 
ye  of  this,"  He  said,  when  He  took  the  cup  and 
blessed  it.  "  This  is  my  Body,"  He  said  of  the 
bread.  "  This  is  my  Blood,"  He  said  of  the  wine. 
His  words  also  are,  "  Except  ye  eat  of  my  flesh 
and  drink  of  my  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you" — 
the  life  of  God  is  not  in  us. 

In  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  Church  of 
England  asserted  its  independence  of  Rome,  it 
restored  the  cup  to  the  laity.  It  then  gradually 
eliminated  accretions  which  had  gathered  from  the 
conditions  and  circumstances  through  which  the 
Church  had  passed,  in  what  are  called  the  "  Dark 
Ages."  Some  of  these  accretions  had  in  a  measure 
obscured  the  full  significance  of  these  two  great 
Sacraments,  which  the  Church  of  England  now 
emphasized  in  the  strongest  language.  It  did  not, 
however,  deny  the  sacramental  character  of  the 
other  "  five  commonly  called  Sacraments,"  but  of 
these  two  the  Church  is  explicit  in  its  teachings. 
They  are  "  ordained  of  Christ."  They  are  not 
**  badges  or  tokens  "  merely  of  our  "  Christian 
profession."  They  are  "certain  sure  witnesses 
and  effectual  signs  of  grace  and  God's  good  will 
towards  us,"  and  by  them  He  "  quickens  "  and 
also  "  strengthens  and  confirms  our  faith  in  Him." 
The  Catechism  expressly  declares  the  meaning  of 
a  sacrament  to  be  an  "  outward  and  visible  sign 


132  THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS, 

of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace  given  unto  us  : 
ordained  by  Christ  Himself,  as  a  means  whereby 
we  receive  the  same,  and  a  pledge  to  assure  us 
thereof."  This  definition  is  most  carefully  word- 
ed. There  is  an  outward  and  visible  sign  to  a 
Sacrament — the  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
grace  given  unto  us;  that  grace  answers  to  that 
sign  :  the  sign  must  suggest  it,  the  grace  must  be 
conformed  to  it.  The  outward  and  visible  sign 
and  the  inward  and  spiritual  grace  are  constituent 
elements  of  the  Sacrament,  mutually  dependent 
and  interdependent. 

I.  Lustration  by  water  was  not  used  for  the  first 
time  by  our  Lord.  What  He  did  was  to  adopt  the 
Rite  and  adapt  it  to  His  purpose,  and  ordain  and 
constitute  it  a  Christian  Sacrament.  The  Baptism 
of  John  was  with  water,  but  it  was  not  Christian 
Baptism.  His  was  merely  a  symbolic  Rite,  signi- 
fying adherence  to  a  new  teaching  and  a  life  in 
accordance  therewith.  In  the  Baptist's  view  it 
was  also,  no  doubt,  a  preparation  for  the  incoming 
Kingdom  of  God,  and  so  for  the  remission  of  sins. 
The  Blessed  Lord  was  baptized  of  John  to  empha- 
size John's  relation  to  Him  as  His  forerunner. 
He  needed  not  that  Baptism  otherwise.  He  was 
without  sin,  and  required  no  cleansing  therefrom. 
The  fact  remains,  therefore,  that  Baptism  is  a 
Sacrament  of  the  Church,  ordained  as  such  by 
Jesus  Christ.     From  His  time  to  ours  it  has  been 


THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  133 

in  the  Church,  the  door  of  entrance  to  the  Church, 
for  men,  women  and  children.  Unfailingly,  water 
has  been  used,  and  the  baptismal  Formula.  Valid 
Baptism  is  found  in  the  use  of  water,  whether  by 
immersion,  pouring  or  sprinkling,  "  in  the  Name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  To  what  end  ?  Thereby  is  the  Church 
enlarged  and  perpetuated.  It  brings  into  new  re- 
lations and  new  conditions  in  a  new  kingdom. 
Jesus  Christ  has  established  a  kingdom.  His  Church. 
Everyone  brought  into  it  must  be  consecrated,  set 
apart  for  it  and  in  it.  Being  born  naturally  into 
the  world,  we  are  born  by  Baptism  supernaturally 
into  the  kingdom  of  God's  Son,  and  have  the 
washing  of  regeneration.  This  is  the  "  New  Birth," 
which,  of  course,  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
doctrine  of  conversion  or  the  doctrine  of  sanctifi- 
cation,  /.^.,  growth  in  grace.  Holy  Baptism  brings 
out  of  the  birth-estate  of  sin  in  the  world  into  a 
state  of  grace  in  Christ's  kingdom,  and  we  are 
thereby  made  "  members  of  Christ,  children  of 
God,  and  inheritors  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven." 
We  are  thus  "  grafted  "  into  the  body  of  Christ, 
who  is  the  "  Head  of  the  body,  the  Church  " — 
grafted  into  Christ  Himself.  These  new  relations 
and  conditions  are  correctly  expressed  by  the 
word  "  regenerate  "  —  re- generate — re-made — no 
longer  a  child  of  the  world,  but  a  ciiild  of  the 
Church  and  of  God.     Jesus  Christ  is  the  Eternal 


134  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

Son  of  God,  God's  only  Son.  By  Baptism  we  are 
made  one  with  Christ,  are  adopted  into  the  family 
of  God,  and  become  heirs  of  God,  and  joint  heirs 
with  Christ  of  all  that  God  can  give  or  do  in  Him. 
We  become  one  compact  body  with  Him  and  with 
each  other  and  with  God.  "  Except  a  man  be 
born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God";  is  not  a  member  of  the 
Holy,  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church.  Observe 
still,  and  carefully,  that  Holy  Baptism  as  a  Sacra- 
ment, administered  as  Christ  ordained,  is  the  "  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
grace  given  unto  us^  It  is  given  to  us  in  and 
through  that  Baptism.  The  inward  and  spiritual 
grace  is  a  divine  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  whereby 
we  die  unto  sin  and  live  unto  Christ.  The  old 
man  is  put  off  and  the  new  man  is  put  on.  Birth 
sin  is  washed  av/ay,  and  the  soul  starts  anew,  with 
the  power  of  an  endless  life  infused,  a  spiritual 
grace  implanted,  which,  if  used,  brings  the  soul 
under  subjection  to  God,  and  enables  it  to  grow 
up  into  Christ  in  all  things.  We  may  not  know 
how  this  change  is  effected  or  how  this  power 
operates,  but  the  fact  remains.  "  The  wind  blow- 
eth  where  it  listeth  and  we  hear  the  sound  there- 
of, but  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it 
goeth.  So  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit." 
We  have  the  assurance  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself  as 
to  all  this.     We  are  baptized  into  Him;  His  life 


THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  135 

takes  possession  of  our  life,  unless  we  reject  Him 
or  are  unfaithful  to  Him.  The  Church  is  a  body 
of  baptized  persons,  baptized  after  the  manner,  and 
with  the  matter  ordained  by  the  Lord.  These  con- 
stitute the  Church,  the  Body  of  the  Faithful — the 
Church  that  is  Holy,  Apostolic,  Catholic,  the 
Church  on  earth  and  in  Heaven,  the  Church  of  all 
the  ages.  This  Sacrament  of  Holy  Baptism,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  yielded,  cannot  be  abrogated.  It 
is  a  deposit  which  the  Church  holds,  which  the 
Church  must  administer,  and  which  by  and  through 
the  Church  only  can  be  validly  bestowed.  It  is  a 
very  different  thing,  as  may  be  at  once  discerned, 
from  that  which  is  sometimes  called  Baptism,  but 
which  is  either  otherwise  administered  than  as 
Christ  ordained,  or  is  robbed  of  all  the  meaning 
and  efficacy  which  are  attached  to  it  by  the  teach- 
ing of  Revelation  or  by  the  consciousness  of  the 
Church.  In  the  mind  of  the  Church  it  is  not  the 
sign  declarative  of  a  pre-existing  fact,  nor  even  a 
symbolic  setting  forth  of  what  is  ideally  desirable. 
It  takes  man  out  from  the  world  and  from  the  state 
of  sin  in  which  he  is  born  into  the  world,  and  makes 
him  a  citizen  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  with  the  old 
life  blotted  out,  and  a  new  life  begun.  It  is  God's 
provision,  in  His  infinite  mercy,  by  which  there  is 
now  union  with  Him  in  Christ,  and  with  the  saints 
of  all  ages,  past  and  present  and  to  come.  It  is 
the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  the  New  Covenant, 


136  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

by  which  the  soul  is  made  white  in  the  light  of 
the  glorified  Lord. 

2.  The  great  Sacrament  of  Holy  Baptism,  how- 
ever, but  introduces  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  in 
a  regenerate  state  and  under  new  conditions  and 
in  new  relations,  and  is  thus  but  a  preparation  for 
the  life  of  that  kingdom,  which  is  a  continuous 
kingdom.  In  that  kingdom  there  must  needs  be 
the  perpetual  reaching  out  and  on,  until  there 
shall  be  attained  the  stature  of  perfection  in  Christ 
Jesus  the  Lord.  To  this  end  there  must  be  the 
perpetual  nourishing  and  strengthening  of  the 
new  and  Divine  life,  that  it  fail  not,  but  that  it 
may  increase  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day,  from  glory  unto  glory.  For  this,  provision 
is  made  in  that  other  great  Sacrament,  also  or- 
dained by  Christ.  This  Sacrament  stands  for 
much  besides  this — stands  for  the  conservation 
and  the  presentation  of  the  Incarnation,  and  the 
Sacrifice,  and  the  Atonement,  and  for  the  wonder 
and  power  and  glory  of  them — but  it  stands  also 
for  this.     It  has  various  designations. 

It  is  called  (rt)  "The  Eucharist,"  as  signifying 
the  giving  or  returning  thanks,  thus  a  Thanksgiv- 
ing, or  Thank-Offering.  This  term  is  used  alike 
iii  the  Eastern  and  Western  Church. 

It  is  called  {h)  "A  memorial,"  because  the  essen- 
tial meaning  of  the  words  "  This  do  in  remem- 
brance of  me"  is,   "This  offer  as  a  Memorial  of 


THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  137 

me," — of  course,   a  Memorial  before  God.     The 
word   '•  do  "  is  properly  "  offer,"  and  as  such  is 
used  repeatedly  in  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old 
Testament.     To    "offer"   is  a  term  of  sacrifice, 
the  "  Sacrifice  of  the  Altar."     A  sacrifice  is  any- 
thing-, living  or  otherwise,  submitted  to  God  in 
whatever  way,  as  a  religious  offering.     For  what- 
ever else  this  Sacrament  exists,  it  exists  to  "  show 
the  Lord's  death  ";  but  His  death  was  a  sacrificial 
offerinrr  to  God  "  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation." 
He  was  the  "Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world," and  now,  in  His  glory,  is  represented  as 
a ' '  Lamb  as  if  slain  "  in  the  presence  of  God  for  us, 
and  pleading  His  sacrifice  of  Himself.     This  idea 
of  sacrifice  inheres  in  the  very  constitution  of  this 
Sacrament.     "  This  is  my  Body,"  broken  for  you. 
"  This   is  my  Blood,"  shed   for  you.     His  Body 
was  offered   on  the  Cross,  and  there  His  Blood 
flowed  for  humanity.     It  is  therefore  rightly  called 
a  Sacrifice,  a  Memorial  Sacrifice  because  it  brings 
before  us  His  Sacrifice;  it  represents  (re-presents) 
that  Sacrifice,  not  only  before  us  but  before  God, 
as  Christ  Himself,  our  Great  High  Priest,  for  ever 
pleads  before  the  Throne  the  offering  of  Himself 
upon  the  Altar  of  Calvary.     This  is  not,  however, 
and  must  not  be  assumed  as,  a  repetition  o{  t\\Q 
Sacrifice  of  the  Cross,  or  any  the  least  renewal  of 
Christ's  sufferings  or  of  His  death.     His  sacrificial 
death  was  once  for  all,  not  only  for  all  men,  but 


138  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

for  all  time,  and  can  never  be  repeated.  He  made, 
once  for  all,  a  **  full,  perfect,  and  sufficient  sacri- 
fice, oblation  and  satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world." 

It  is  called  [c)  "a  Communion."  The  Faithful 
partake  of  it,  as  did  the  Apostles  when  it  was  first 
instituted.  Together  we  partake — partake  of  one 
Bread,  or  Loaf,  broken,  and  of  one  Cup — 
thus  declaring  that  we  are  one  with  Christ, 
one  redeemed  family  in  Him,  feeding  on  the 
Bread  of  Heaven  and  the  Wine  of  God,  which 
is  One  Christ.  It  is  a  feast  upon  a  sacrifice — and 
thus,  a  Communion.  The  Paschal  Supper  was 
eaten  and  ended;  and  the  type,  finding  its  fulfil- 
ment in  Christ,  ceased,  and  the  new  Rite  was  or- 
dained to  take  its  place,  and  to  show  forth  the  One 
Lamb  of  God  who  was  slain  for  us. 

By  whatever  name  called,  however,  each  desig- 
nation bringing  out  some  special  feature  and  em- 
phasizing it,  the  essential  nature  and  meaning  of 
this  Sacrament  remain.  As  a  Sacrament,  there  is 
the  outward  and  visible  sign,  and  the  inward  and 
spiritual  grace.  It  is  a  "  mystery  ";  but  a  mystery 
is  always  something  that  is  known  in  part,  but  of 
which  something  remains  unknown  until  revealed. 
As  the  outward  and  visible  sign  we  have  the 
Bread  and  Wine.  The  inward  and  spiritual  grace, 
given  to  us  in  and  through  the  sign,  consists  in 
the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  "spiritually  taken 


THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  139 

and  received  by  the  Faithful,"  so  that  there  is  the 
"streng-thening-and  refreshing  of  our  souls  by  the 
Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  as  our  bodies  are  by 
the  bread  and  wine."  There  is  here  no  definition 
of  how  the  Lord  is  present  in  the  Sacrament,  or 
how  He  is  received  by  us,  or  how  we  are  strength- 
ened and  refreshed,  but  the  fact  is  clearly  stated. 
We  receive  the  Body  and  Blood  sacramentally, 
and  are  sacramentally  built  up  in  Christ.  The 
Sacrament  is  not,  therefore,  and  cannot  be,  merely 
a  memorial — something  which  simply  reminds  of 
Christ.  In  that  view,  there  is  no  sacramental 
character  or  efficacy,  no  spiritual  vitality,  or 
grace,  or  virtue.  On  the  other  hand,  as  already 
stated,  there  is  no  renewal  here  of  Christ's  per- 
sonal sacrifice.  To  sustain  that  view,  Transub- 
stantiation  would  be  in  complete  harmony,  and 
must  needs  be  accepted.  But  Transubstantiation, 
in  any  real  sense,  there  is  not  in  this  Sacrament. 
That  would  involve  not  only  the  constant  and 
multitudinous  repetition  of  the  death  of  Our 
Blessed  Lord,  but  a  constantly  recurring  miracle 
for  which  there  is  no  precedent,  no  occasion,  and 
no  authority.  On  the  theory  of  Transubstantia- 
tion, so  awful,  so  appalling  are  the  possible  dangers 
involved  in  the  administration  of  the  Cup,  that  the 
withdrawal  of  the  Cup  from  the  laity  is  justified, — 
even  in  view  of  the  fearful  consequences  involved 
in   what  may  then  be  a  mutilated  Sacrament. 


I40  THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

"  The  Bread  which  we  break  is  a  partaking  of  the 
Body  of  Christ ;  and  likewise  the  cup  of  blessing 
is  a  partaking  of  the  Blood  of  Christ."  But  "  the 
Body  of  Christ  is  given,  taken,  and  eaten,  in  the 
Supper,  only  after  an  heavenly  and  spiritual  man- 
ner." There  is  a  "  Real  Presence  "  of  Our  Blessed 
Lord  in  this  Sacrament,  not  a  real  absence.  We 
partake  of  Him.  We  commemorate  His  sacri- 
ficial death  for  us.  We  plead  before  the  Throne 
of  God  His  propitiatory  offering,  for  ourselves, 
for  the  whole  Church,  and  for  the  whole  world. 
It  is  the  One  Bread  broken,  and  the  One  Cup  of 
the  New  Covenant  in  His  Blood,  witnessing  our 
unity  each  with  the  other,  with  our  Saviour,  and 
with  our  God. 

Clearly,  any  essential  change  in  this  Sacrament 
as  to  the  "sign  "  (the  elements  used,  the  method 
of  using  them,  and  the  words  of  consecration) 
would  endanger  the  character  of  the  Sacrament, 
and  thus  invalidate  its  efficacy.  It  would  cease  to 
be  what  was  instituted  by  Christ,  and  could  no 
longer  be  held  as  a  witness  or  a  channel  of  any 
inward  and  spiritual  grace  given  unto  us.  This 
is  true,  also,  of  course,  of  the  other  great  Sacra- 
ment, Holy  Baptism.  These  Sacraments,  as  di- 
vinely instituted,  as  ordained  by  Christ  Himself, 
have  supernatural  virtues,  whether  we  will  have  it 
so  or  not.  The  Christian  religion  is  a  supernatu- 
ral  religion.     It  has  no   meaning  otherwise  that 


THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  141 

we  are  under  obligation  to  recognize.  It  must  be 
supernatural,  as  dealing  with  God  and  His  rela- 
tions with  men,  with  the  soul  and  its  relations  to 
God,  with  spiritual  verities,  and  spiritual  life,  and 
an  immortal  destiny.  The  alternative  is  logical 
and  necessary — either  the  Christian  religion  is  a 
supernatural  religion,  or  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  Christian  religion.  Whatever  pertains  essen- 
tially, therefore,  to  this  religion,  may  well  be,  and 
must  be,  taken  as  channels  or  instruments  of  con- 
veying supernatural  efficacies.  The  conscious- 
ness of  the  Greek  Church  was  not  astray  when  it 
called,  as  it  still  calls,  the  sacraments  by  the  word 
*'  Mystery."  Nor  was  the  consciousness  of  the 
Latin  Church  astray  when  it  called,  as  it  still 
calls,  these  mysteries  "Sacraments,"  and  defined 
a  Sacrament  as  the  "  sign  of  a  sacred  thing,"  or 
the  "  external  sign  of  an  inward  grace."  Moreover, 
as  by  the  great  mysteries  of  Holy  Baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper,  our  souls  are  bound  to  Christ, 
to  live  to  Him  and  for  Him  in  loving  obedience 
to  His  holy  will,  as  the  great  Captain  of  our  salva- 
tion, the  ancient  meaning  of  the  word  Sacramen- 
tuni  stands  out  boldly.  The  Sacraments  are  to 
us,  in  very  truth,  the  oaths  of  our  allegiance  to 
God  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord,  as  soldiers  of  the 
Cross,  to  fight  the  good  fight  until  the  world  shall 
be  subject  to  Him  by  the  witness  we  give,  or  until 
we  shall  die  in  the  battle  for  victory  over  all  that 


142  THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

opposes  itself  against  Him  as  rightfully  the  Lord 
of  lords,  and  the  King  of  kings. 

As  with  the  Sacrament  of   Holy  Baptism,   so 
with  the  Sacrament  of  the  Holy  Eucharist.     It  is 
a  deposit  received  by  the  Church,  to  be  conserved 
by  the    Church,  and  transmitted  unimpaired  by 
the  Church  through  the  ages.     It  is  for  the  sus- 
tenance of  human  souls  brought  into  union  with 
Jesus  Christ  by  Baptism.    It  is  the  impartation  of 
Christ  Himself  to  the  souls  of  the  faithful;  by  vir- 
tue of  which  we  become  bone  of  His  bone,  flesh 
of  His  flesh,  blood  of  His  blood,  until  those  who 
are  in  Him,  individually  and  collectively,  shall  be 
changed    into   His  glorious  image,  as  one  body, 
transfigured    and    resplendent.      The    Catholic, 
Apostolic  Church  cannot  yield  this  Sacrament,  or 
vary  or  alter  it  in  any  essential  feature,  or  make 
it,  in  any  way  or  sense,  other  than  it  is,  and  as  it 
has    received   it.      To   do   so   would   involve   the 
spiritual  impoverishment  and  gradual  decline  and 
death  of  the  Church  itself.     As  the  Church  is  able 
to  give,  in  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism,  union  with 
Christ,  and  so  with  God,  and  with  all  saints  living 
here  or  beyond  the  stars,  so  it  gives,  in  the  Sacra- 
ment of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  the  very 
life  of  Christ  Himself,  which  thus  flows  through 
all   lives   of  all   saints,   everywhere   and  forever, 
holding  their  lives  as  one  life,  an  eternal  life,  ever 
enlarging  as  it  rolls  on,  and    ever  gathering  to 


THE   TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  143 

itself  the  fulness  of  the  blessedness  and  purity, 
the  joy  and  peace  of  Heaven.  Upon  these  two 
great  Sacraments  the  Episcopate  rightly  insists. 
These  the  Church  only  can  bestow  in  all  their  ful- 
ness; these  it  is  willing  and  anxious,  as  trustee 
for  God,  to  bestow  upon  all  those  who  will  accept. 
These  Sacraments  are  now,  as  they  have  ever  been, 
the  bonds  of  the  Catholic  Church,  holding  it  fast 
to  the  faith  of  Christ.  When  they  shall  be  rightly 
understood,  appreciated  and  accepted,  when  all 
who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians,  but 
who  are  now  away  from  or  outside  of  the  historic 
Church  of  the  Living  God,  shall  become  obedient 
to  them,  they  will  be  found  the  uniting  powers 
that  will  bring  again  the  scattered  remnants  of  the 
spiritual  Israel,  the  broken  fragments  of  Christen- 
dom, and  there  will  be  once  more  one  Fold  and 
one  Shepherd,  one  Faith  and  one  Church. 

Obviously,  this  view  of  these  two  Sacraments, 
being  essentially  the  view  held  by  the  historic 
Church,  East  and  West,  by  the  Greek  Church  and 
its  dependencies,  the  Latin  Church  and  its  con- 
stituencies, and  the  Anglican  Church  wherever 
scattered  abroad,  must  be  preserved  intact  by  us. 
Certainly  this  must  be,  if  we  would  aid  in  further- 
ing the  cause  of  a  universal  and  abiding  Christian 
unity,  so  devoutly  to  be  desired,  or  if  there  shall 
be  any  hope  of  securing  that  unity.  To  yield 
these  Sacraments,  by  the  toning  down  of  their 


144  THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS. 

meaning  or  power,  or  by  admitting  in  association 
with  them  views  quite  commonly  held,  would  be 
the  emphasizing  of  lines  divergent  from  the  great 
Catholic  bodies  of  the  world,  and  would  make  the 
consummation  of  tlieir  reunion  impossible.  We 
should  lose  then  the  vantage-ground  which  it  is 
believed  that  we  now  possess  in  furthering  the 
accomplishment  of  the  unity  of  Catholic  Christen- 
dom. A  unity  of  Protestant  Christendom  would 
be  but  partial  unity  after  all.  The  bishops  of 
this  Church  of  ours  never  meant,  and  could  not 
mean,  to  sever  themselves  from  the  Catholic  heri- 
tage which  is  theirs,  and  so  make  more  formida- 
ble and  more  hopeless  the  divergencies  which 
now  exist.  The  fulness  of  the  sacramental  idea, 
as  held  in  the  Church  from  the  beginning,  is  ours, 
and  the  blessings  inherent  therein.  These  Sacra- 
ments we  offer  in  all  loving  sincerity  and  earnest- 
ness to  our  non-Episcopal  brethren  of  whatever 
name,  assured  that  the  acceptance  of  the  Sacra- 
mental idea  will  serve  to  unify  them,  and  the 
sooner  and  more  surely  lead  to  a  possible  unity 
in  the  faith  and  Person  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  one  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church. 
One  Lord,  one  Faith,  one  Baptism,  one  nourish- 
ment of  the  soul  by  the  Body  and  Blood  of 
Christ,  one  God  and  Father  of  us  all — this  is  the 
goal  to  which  we  may  and  ought  to  press.  This 
is  the  divine  ideal  of  the  Church  on  earth.     This 


THE  TWO  GREAT  SACRAMENTS.  145 

will  be  the  realization  of  the  Church  in  Heaven. 
We  have  a  Baptism  which  makes  members  of 
Christ  and  of  His  Church.  We  have  an  altar,  and 
the  priests  of  God  everywhere  offer  the  Sacrifice 
as  the  great  and  central  act  of  the  worship  of  the 
Church — which  it  has  been  from  the  beginning. 
It  is  everywhere,  as  it  has  ever  been — the  plead- 
ing of  His  atoning  sacrifice  upon  the  cross,  Who 
prayed  that  all  who  named  His  Name  might  be 
one  with  each  other,  and  one  with  Him,  and  one 
with  God. 


Zbc  Metovk  i£pi6Copate» 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  REV.   FRANCIS  J.  HALL,  M.A., 

Instructor  of  Theology  in  the  Western  Theological  Seminary, 

Chicago,  111. 

THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE. 

It  is  my  privilege  to  address  you  concerning  the 
Historic  Episcopate. 

I  need  not  labor  to  convince  you  of  the  impor- 
tance of  the  subject.  The  air  is  full  of  it.  Chris^ 
tians  of  every  name  are  wrestling  with  the  problem 
of  Church  Unity  ;  and  the  sectarian  world  about 
us  considers  our  insistence  upon  the  Historic  Epis- 
copate to  be  the  chief  barrier  to  unity,  while  our 
own  Bishops  have  asserted  that  Ministry  to  be  "in- 
capable of  compromise  or  surrender."  It  is  clear 
that  no  unity  is  possible  between  parties  thus  op- 
posed to  each  other,  until  the  claims  of  the  His- 
toric Episcopate  have  been  duly  examined  and  an 
agreement  has  been  reached  as  to  their  validity. 

Other  issues  are  involved  in  this  controversy, 
and  of  vital  nature.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  rejection 
of  the  Episcopate  has  been  followed   sooner  or 


150  THE  HIS  TORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE. 

later  by  heresy,  decay  of  faith  in  the  doctrine  of 
supernatural  grace,  disintegration  and  unbelief. 
To  one  who  believes  in  the  doctrine  of  Apostolic 
Succession  this  seems  perfectly  natural ;  for  what 
is  more  logical  and  inevitable  than  that  such  re- 
sults should  follov/  upon  a  loss  of  the  Ministry — 
and  the  only  Ministry — which  God  has  ordained 
and  empowered  to  guard  the  Faith,  dispense  the 
means  of  grace,  and  hold  the  faithful  together  in 
unity  until  the  end  of  days?* 

The  subject  of  the  Historic  Episcopate  neces- 
sarily has  peculiar  interest  for  us.  The  Protestant 
world  '.nvites  us  to  justify  the  attitude  assumed  by 
our  Bishops  in  their  Declaration  of  Unity,  wherein 
they  insist  upon  the  Episcopate  as  upon  an  tilti- 
viat2im,  refusing  to  compromise  or  surrender  it 
even  when  called  upon  to  do  so  for  the  sake  of 
unity  and  charity.  This  invitation  is  a  natural 
one  ;  and,  if  we  would  avoid  appearance  of  evil, 
we  must  give  a  sufficient  reason  for  our  position, 
and  one  equivalent  to  religious  necessity.  Noth- 
ing short  of  this  will  justify  the  setting  forth  of  an 
7iliijnat7im  as  to  the  course  to  be  pursued  in  restor- 
ing visible  unity  to  the  Church  of  God. 

In  order  to  exhibit  such  a  reason  we  may  be 
obliged  to  display  truths  and  convictions  which 


*  Haddan's  Apostolical  Succession  in  the  Church  of  England, 
1883,  pp.  vi.,  19-22. 


THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE.  1 5 1 

are  not  acceptable  to  those  who  question  us.  But 
in  such  case,  the  interests  of  honor  as  well  as  of 
charity  will  require  that  we  should  lay  bare  the  true 
nature  of  the  hindrances  in  this  direction  which 
must  be  removed  before  unity  can  be  secured. 

It  is  my  purpose  to  exhibit  as  well  as  I  can  {a) 
the  meaning  of  our  fourth  term  of  unity  ;  (h)  an 
outline  of  the  historical  argument  which  justifies 
that  term ;  {c)  its  practical  bearing  on  the  prob- 
lem of  Church  Unity. 

I. 

The  fourth  term  of  unity,  set  forth  in  1 886,  reads : 
The  Historic  Episcopate^  locally  adapted  in  the 
methods  of  its  ad-ninistratiju  to  the  varying  needs 
of  tke  nations  and  peoples  called  of  God  into  the 
nnity  of  His  Church.^ 

(a)  This  language  is  not  fairly  charged  with  am- 
biguity, especially  if  the  nature  of  the  Declaration 
in  which  it  occurs  is  considered. t  Its  leading 
phrase,  "the  Historic  Episcopate,"  was  surely  in- 
tended, and  has  been  taken  by  many,  to  be  simply 
"  the  polite  equivalent  of  a  controversial  term 
[Apostolic  Succession]  which  had  long  been  in 
use,"  as  one  of  our  Bishops:]:  expresses  it. 


'Journal  Gen.  Conv.  iSS6,  p.  So. 

f  The  whole  difficulty  of  interpretation  has  arisen  from 
isolating  the  terms  of  unity  from  their  context. 

:|:  Bishop  McLaren,  in  the  New  York  IiuL-piudcnt,  Mch. 
8,  1894. 


1 5  2  THE  HIS  TORIC  E  PI  SCO  PA  TE. 

But  this,  the  natural  interpretation,  has  been 
explained  away  by  certain  eminent  Churchmen, 
and  their  explanations  have  misled  certain  Prot- 
estants and  have  disturbed  many  among  ourselves 
who  look  to  the  chief  Pastors  of  the  Church  to 
give  forth  no  uncertain  sound. 

Our  Bishops  are  said  to  have  "  fastened  on  cer- 
tain words,  the  characteristic  of  which  is,  that  they 
express  a  fact  without  at  all  insisting  upon  any 
theory  of  the  fact.  .  .  .  That  government  by 
oversight,  v/hich  is  what  *  episcopacy,'  when  trans- 
lated, means,  has  been  historically  the  prevailing 
method  of  polity  in  Christendom,  certainly  from 
the  second  century  onwards,  is  beyond  dispute. 
.  .  .  That  if  we  are  to  have  organic  unity  at 
all,  it  is  more  reasonable  to  expect  that  it  should  be 
brought  about  under  this  method  of  pilotage  than 
any  other."  In  short  we  are  told  that  "  it  is  a 
simple  falling  back  on  fact.  Think  as  you  please, 
the  Bishops  seem  to  say,  about  the  nature  and 
sanction  of  the  Christian  Ministry,"  * 

We  have  no  quarrel  with  the  amiable  spirit 
which  lies  behind  such  an  interpretation  ;  but  we 
cannot  accept  its  reasonableness,  nor  can  we  dis- 
cover how  the  Episcopate  will  be  made  more  ac- 


*  Dr.  Huntington's  Peace  of  the  Church,  pp.  204,  205.     Cf. 
o.lso  Dr.  Shields's  United  Church  of  the  United  States,  pp.   5;, 


THE  HIS  TOKIC  EP I  SCOP  A  TE.  153 

ceptable  to  Protestant  denominations  by  our  re- 
fusing to  give  any  more  adequate  reason  for  in- 
sisting upon  it  than  the  fact  that  it  has  existed 
for  a   long  time.     Does   mere  antiquity  make  a 
thing  necessary  ?     Can  the  phrase  "  incapable  of 
compromise  or  surrender,"  employed  by  our  Bish- 
ops, be  rightly  applied  to  anything  which  is  not 
necessary  in  itself?     Does  an  opinion  on  our  part 
that  "  it  is  more  reasonable  to  expect  that  "  unity 
"  should  be  brought  about  under  this  method  of 
pilotage  than  any  other"  make  the  Episcopate  in- 
capable   of    compromise    or    surrender  ?       It    is 
thought,  I  know,  that,  if  we  claim  Divine  sanction 
for  the  Episcopate,  we  shall    be  considered  pre- 
sumptuous.    But  shall  we  be  thought  less  so  in 
requiring  the  religious  world  to  yield   to  us  with 
reference  to  what  we  refuse  to  say  is  of  more  than 
human  sanction  ?    Is  not  humility  with  those  who 
magnify  their  office  on  the  ground  that  it  is  of 
Divine  institution  and  held  in   trust,  rather  than 
with  those  who  do  the   same  thing  on  grounds 
purely  human  ?     Are  our  Protestant  brethren  in- 
capable of  answering  such  questions  with  common 
sense  ? 

It  is  indeed  true,  as  even  so  staunch  a  Church- 
man as  the  late  Canon  Liddon  could  say,  that,  in 
asserting  Apostolic  Succession,  "  we  are  not  for- 
mulating a  theory,  but  stating  a  fact  of  history."* 

*  Clerical  Life  and  Work,  Dp.  2qi.  2q2. 


154  THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCOP  A  TE. 

But,  as  that  saintly  Priest  would  readily  have  agreed, 
thereare  facts,  of  which  Apostolic  Succession  is  one, 
which  cannot  be  stated  without  immediate  impli- 
cations of  doctrinal  nature,  which  we  cannot  es- 
cape without  evasion  of  the  facts  themselves.  Thus, 
the  doubting  Thomas  found  himseli  obliged,  the 
instant  in  which  he  realized  the  fact  that  his  Master 
had  risen  in  very  flesh  and  bones  from  the  dead,  to 
acknowledge  His  Godhead  and  adore  Him;  and 
those  who  lose  their  hold  upon  the  reality  of  the 
physical  resurrection  of  our  Lord  come  ulti- 
mately, if  they  live  long  enough,  to  a  denial  of 
His  Person.  The  phrase  "  Historic  Episcopate" 
stands  for  a  fact  of  such  nature  ;  and  the  fact 
signified  is  that  the  Episcopate  was  instituted  by 
Christ  to  be  the  earthly  source  of  spiritual  juris- 
diction and  the  bond  of  visible  unity  in  the  Church 
to  the  end  of  days. 

We  cannot  accept  such  a  fact  without  treating 
the  Episcopate  as  of  Divine  requirement,  and  be- 
lieving that  its  maintenance  is  inseparably  bound 
up  with  the  maintenance  of  true  religion.  •  It  is  as 
absurd  to  speak  of  believing  in  the  Historic  Epis- 
copate as  a  fact  merely,  as  it  is  to  speak  of  be- 
lieving in  God  as  a  fact  merely.  God  is  a  Being 
Whose  very  Nature  requires  our  loyalty,  so  that 
the  fact  of  His  existence  cannot  be  duly  stated 
without  doctrines  and  consequences  appearing 
which  should  modify  our  lives.    In  hke  manner,  the 


THE  HIS  TOKIC  EPISCOPA  TE.  155 

Historic  Episcopate  is  by  nature  or,  if  you  prefer 
to  put  it  so,  historically,  a  fact  with  implications 
as  to  authority  which  we  cannot  evade  without 
icrnorine  the  contents  of  the  fact  itself.  The  fact 
includes  Christ's  mission,  and  a  Divinely  sanc- 
tioned government  in  the  Church,  from  which 
there  can  be  no  earthly  appeal,  as  well  as  a  perma- 
nent stewardship  of  grace  and  truth. 

In  view  of  such  considerations,  we  hold  that 
our  Bishops  were  not  likely  to  have  submitted  the 
Historic  Episcopate  "  simply  as  a  question  of  pol- 
ity," as  a  brilliant  and  amiable  Presbyterian  pro- 
fessor expresses  it.*  Nor  can  we  assent  to  his 
assertion  that  "  it  is  of  prime  importance  that  such 
dogmas  [as  Apostolic  Succession]  .  .  .  should 
sink  out  of  view  while  we  are  considering  its 
claims  and  merits  as  a  Christian  institution."  f 
To  require  "  the  Historic  Episcopate,  as  neither 
enjoining  nor  forbidding  any  doctrine  of  Apostolic 
Succession":}:  would  be  mere  trifling,  whatever 
our  convictions  might  be.  If  we  look  upon  the 
Episcopate  as  essential  to  the  maintenance  of 
true  religion,  Avhat  right  have  we  to  enter  into  an 
arrangement  which  will  sooner  or  later  place  it 
in  the  power  of  those  who  regard  it  as  of  human 
origin  and  subject  to  human  modification  ?     If,  on 

*  Prof.  Shields's  United  Church  of  the  United  States,  p.  157. 

t  Ibid. 

X  Ibid.  p.  182. 


1 5  6  THE  HIS  TORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE. 

the  other  hand,  we  believe,  as  we  do  not,  that  the 
Episcopate  is  merely  desirable  and  not  essential, 
how  can  we  answer  satisfactorily  the  question  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  who 
asks,  "  Why  make  that  essential  to  the  organiza- 
tion of  all  Churches  into  one,  which  is  conceded  to 
be  unessential  to  the  legitimate  organization  of 
any?"*  Truly  "  such  a  position  cannot  be  suc- 
cessfully defended  as  a  sine  qua  non  to  Church 
union."  t  And  the  light  in  which  thoughtful  sec- 
tarians usually  regard  it  is  truly  expressed  by  a  well- 
known  editor,  when  he  says,  it  "  is  arrogance,  and 
arrogance  is  not  the  road  to  Christian  union."  % 

It  is,  in  fact,  just  such  interpretations  as  I  have 
been  reviewing  which  occasion  and  justify  the 
charge  so  frequently  made  that  our  insistence 
upon  the  Episcopate  is  the  chief  barrier  to  unity.  § 
We  cannot  refute  such  a  charge  on  any  other  than 
the  highest  doctrinal  ground,  viz.,  that  the  Epis- 
copate is  of  Divine  institution  and  requirement, 
and  for  that  reason  "  incapable  of  compromise  or 
surrender  "  by  its  stewards  and  trustees. 

{b)  To  proceed :  if  our  fourth  term  cannot  be 
cleared  from  the  charge  of  absurdity  except  on 

*  Dr    Josiah   Strong,    in    The   Question  of  Unity,  edited  by 
Dr.  Bradford,  p.  25. 
I  Ibid.  p.  26. 
:j:Ibid.  p.  38. 
g  Ibid.  p.  26. 


THE  HIS  TORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE.  157 

high  doctrinal  grounds,  neither  should  it  be  re- 
garded as  committing  this  Church  in  the  slightest 
decree,  unless  it  is  consistent  with  her  formularies. 
Our  Bishops,  as  they  themselves  have  said  re- 
cently, speak  "  not  as  truth-seekers,  but  as  truth 
receivers,  '  ambassadors  in  bonds,*  "  and  their 
"sole  inquiry  is  :  What  does  this  Church  teach? 
What  is  the  declaration  of  God's  Holy  Word?  "* 
Their  elevation  to  the  Episcopate  did  not  nullify 
their  priestly  obligation  and  vow  "  always  so  to 
minister  the  Doctrine  and  Sacraments,  and  the 
Discipline  of  Christ,  as  the  Lord  hath  commanded, 
and  as  this  Church  hath  received  the  same."  They 
may  indeed  say  and  do  much  in  their  episcopal 
capacity  simply,  making  use  of  methods  not  pro- 
vided for  in  the  Constitution  and  Canons  of  our 
General  Convention.  They  have  often  done  so — 
"in  Council"  and  in  the  Lambeth  Conferences. 
But  they  cannot  alter  the  Constitution  and  Can- 
ons, nor  can  they  lawfully  commit  the  General 
Convention  to  the  necessity  of  such  alterations, 
except  by  methods  constitutionally  provided. 

In  view  of  these  elementary  principles,  we  are 
unwilling  to  read  into  the  Declaration  touching 
the  Historic  Episcopate  any  meaning  which  would 
require  an  alteration  in  the  doctrines  of  this  Church 
or  a  change  in  its  polity.  No  doubt  our  Bishops 
will  always  be  ready  to  do  what  in  them  lies  to- 

*  Pastoral  Letter  of  1894,  p.  9. 


158  THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCOP  A  TE. 

ward  locally  adapting  our  episcopal  polity  to  the 
peoples  with  whom  they  have  to  do;  but  we  have 
too  much  confidence  in  them  to  believe  that  they 
will  attempt  this  by  unconstitutional  methods,  in- 
consistent with  the  terms  on  which  they  have  re- 
ceived their  Office.*  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add, 
that  to  interpret  any  part  of  their  Declaration  on 
.Unity,  issued  as  it  was  without  legislative  action, 
as  intended  to  commit  this  Church,  under  con- 
ditions of  their  own  naming,  to  doctrinal  and 
ecclesiastical  changes  of  radical  nature,  is  to  deal 
somewhat  severely  with  their  reputations  for  loy- 
alty. Surely  we  are  warranted  in  denying  that 
their  language  pointed  to  any  **  structural  sur- 
render "  ;t  and  in  treating  their  fourth  terrti  as  in- 
tended to  be  in  harmony  with  the  existing  for- 
mularies and  principles  of  this  Church. 

Her  principles  are  clear  enough  in  this  matter. 
She  has  not,  indeed,  treated  her  doctrine  of  the 
Ministry,  or  any  other  portion  of  her  Faith,  as  re- 
quiring legislative  enactment,  or  as  affected  in  the 
slightest  degree  as  to  its  binding  force  by  its 
being  inscribed  in  the  Constitution  of  her  General 

*  When  they  were  consecrated  they  vowed  to  "exercise 
such  discipline  as  by  the  authority  of  God's  Word,  and  by 
ike  order  of  this  Church,  is  committed  unto"  them.  See  Or- 
dinal. 

f  Bishop  McLaren,  in  New  York  Independent,  March  8, 
180.1. 


THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCOP  A  TE.  1 59 

Convention.*  It  is  also  true  that  she  has  no- 
where set  forth  her  doctrine  of  the  Ministry  in 
connected  order  and  detail  in  her  formularies. 
But  we  can  discover  sufficient  indications  of  her 
mind  none  the  less. 

She  has  said  in  the  Preface  of  her  Ordinal  that 
"  from  the  Apostles'  time  there  have  been  these 
Orders  of  Ministers  in  Christ's  Church,  Bishops, 
Priests  and  Deacons.  Which  Offices  were  ever- 
more had  in  such  reverend  estimation,  that  no 
man  might  presume  to  execute  any  of  them, except 
he  were  first  called,  .  .  .  and  also  by  public 
Prayer,  with  Imposition  of  Hands,  were  approved 
and  admitted  thereunto  by  lawful  Authority. 
And  therefore  to  the  intent  that  these  Orders  may 
be  continued,  and  reverently  used  and  esteemed 
in  this  Church,  no  man  shall  be  accounted  or 
taken  to  be  a  lawful  Bishop,  Priest  or  Deacon,  in 
this  Church,  or  suffered  to  execute  any  of  the  said 
functions,  except  he  be  called,  tried,  examined  and 
admitted  thereunto,  according  to  the  Form  here- 
after following,  or  hath  had    Episcopal  Consecra- 

*  The  General  Convention  is  not  "  this  Church,"  but  a  legal 
corporation  employed  by  and  subject  to  this  Church.  Its 
Constitution  is  mutable  and  deals  with  changeable  things. 
The  Church's  own  Constitution,  including  her  Faith  and 
polity,  is  divine  and  immutable.  The  General  Convention 
legislates  for  its  maintenance,  not  for  its  enactment,  definition, 
or  revision. 


1 60  THE  HIS  TORIC  E  PI  SCO  PA  TE. 

tion  or  Ordination."  In  her  prayers  the  Church 
assumes  that  God  has  appointed  "divers  Orders" 
in  His  Church,  by  His  "  Divine  Providence,"  * 
and  by  His  "  Holy  Spirit  ";t  and  that  the  Apos- 
tolic Commission  is  a  proper  reason  for  conse- 
crating Bishops  to  be  the  "  Pastors  "  of  Christ  s 
Church  and  to  "administer  the  godly  discipline 
thereof."  %  She  interprets  the  Scriptural  injunc- 
tion "  to  lay  hands  suddenly  on  no  man  "  as  prop- 
erly applicable  to  the  Consecration  of  Bishops;  § 
and  connects  those  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  where- 
by He  makes  "  some  Apostles,  some  Prophets," 
etc.,  with  the  same  action.il  She  professes  "by 
the  imposition  of  the  hands  "  of  her  Bishops  to 
confer  the  Holy  Ghost  "  for  the  Office  and  work 
of  a  Bishop  in  the  Church  of  God." 

In  her  Office  of  Institution  she  testifies  that 
Christ  hath  "  promised  to  be  with  the  Ministers  of 
Apostolic  Succession  to  the  end  of  the  world."  1^ 
She  receives  into  her  Ministry  those  who  have  re- 
ceived Episcopal  ordination  in  other   Commun- 


*  Collect  in  the  Ordinal  of  Deacons. 

f  Collect  in  the  Ordinal  of  Priests.  Also  the  prayer  before 
the  examination  of  Bishops-elect. 

X  Collect  in  the  Ordinal  of  Bishops. 

§  Address  to  the  Bishop-elect  before  his  examination. 

II  Prayer  before  the  laying-on  of  hands.  Cf.  Ephes.  iv.  11; 
I.  Cor.  xii    28. 

1[  Second  prayer  before  the  benediction. 


THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCOP  A  TE.  l6i 

ions,*  and  treats  all  other  so-called  ordinations 
as  null  and  void,  in  the  Constitution  and  Canons 
of  her  General  Convention.f  In  brief,  if  she  has 
not  defined  the  doctrine  of  Apostolic  Succession 
in  set  terms,  she  has  at  least  tied  herself  to  modes 
of  address  to  God  and  man,  and  to  rules  of  action, 
which  are  inscrutable  on  the  supposition  that  that 
doctrine  does  not  express  her  mind. 

There  has  been  no  reason  for  formal  definitions. 
This  Church  is  a  daughter  of  the  Church  of  England, 
being  under  the  Episcopal  oversight  of  the  Bishop 
of  London  before  the  Revolution,  and  asserting 
her  origin  and  structure  by  the  name  Episcopal 
when  the  division  of  national  jurisdiction  took 
place.  She  declares  in  the  Preface  of  her  Prayer 
Book  that  she  "is  far  from  intending  to  depart 
from  the  Church  of  England  in  any  essential  point 
of  doctrine,  discipline  or  worship."  In  acting  and 
praying  on  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of  Apostolic 
Succession,  therefore,  she  but  retains  her  ancient 
constitution  and  Faith;  for,  in  spite  of  the  vaga- 
ries of  individual  writers  and  schools  and  in  spite 
of  laxity  of  individual  ecclesiastics  in  the  exercise 
of  discipline,  the  corporate  position  of  the  English 
Church,  as  embodied  in  her  formularies  and  dis- 
played in  her  elaborate  care  for  the  preservation 
of  the   Historic   Episcopate  and  succession,   has 

*  Title  I.,  Canon  15,  Digest  of  1892. 
f  Title  I.,  Canon  3   §  vi.;^/.  Canon  17. 


1 6  2  THE  HIS  TORIC  EPISCOPA  TE. 

been  unmistakable,  and  in  agreement  with  Catho- 
lic doctrine.* 

(r)  Having  shown  to  the  best  of  my  abiUty  that 
our  fourth  term  is  absurd,  presumptuous  and  dis- 
loyal, unless  submitted  from  a  high  doctrinal 
point  of  view,  I  only  need  to  give  explicit  proof, 
by  quotations  from  their  own  language,  that  our 
Bishops  were  neither  unreasonable  nor  disloyal, 
but  assumed  in  their  fourth  term  a  defensible  and 
Catholic  position. 

The  Declaration  consists,  as  you  are  aware,  of 
preamble  and  body.  The  body  of  the  Declaration 
includes  not  only  the  so-called  "  terms  "  of  unity 
(an  inaccurate  phrase),  but  also  some  explanatory 
matter  and  an  express  statement  of  the  doctrinal 
reason  for  insisting  uj)on  the  Episcopate  and  other 
"  terms  "  of  unity.     Permit  me  to  quote  from  it. 

IVe  do  hereby  affirm,  our  Bishops  say,  that  the 
Christian  unity  now  so  earnestly  desired  .  .  . 
can  be  restored  only  by  the  return  of  all  Christian 
Communions  to  the  principles  of  jinity  exemplified 
by  the  undivided  CatJiohc  Church  during  the  first 
ages  of  its  existence;  which  principles  we  believe  to 
be  th,'  substantial  deposit  of  Faith  and  Order  com- 
mitted by  Christ  and  His  Apostles  to  the  Church 
unto  the  end  of  the  iv)rld,  and  therefore  incapable 
of  cjmpromlse  or  surrender  by  those  zvho  have  been 

*]r{s.A'lsin.'s  Aj>osto!ical    Succession,    ch.    vi.,    especially   pp. 

I5S-I77. 


THE  ins  TORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE.  163 

ordained  to  be  its  stetuards  andtrustcs  for  the  com- 
mon and  equal  benefit  of  all  men. 

As  in/ierent  parts  of  this  sacred  deposit^  and 
therefore  as  essential  to  the  restoration  of  unity 
ammg  the  divided  branches  of  Christendom,  lue  ac- 
count the  follozuing,  t)  wit: 

4.   The  Historic  Episcopate,'''  etc. 

I  have  spoken  at  considerable  length  on  the  in- 
terpretation  of  our  fourth  term  of  unity,  because 
I  am  convinced  that  the  novelties  which  have 
been  imputed  to  our  Bishops  will  do  more  harm 
to  the  cause  of  genuine  Church  Unity,  if  allowed 
to  pass,  than  can  be  repaired  for  a  long  time  to 
come.  I  think,  however,  that  I  need  not  say 
more  in  connection  v;ith  this,  except  to  give  a 
brief  outline  of  the  sense  in  which  our  fourth  term 
appears  to  be  submitted, 

1.  That  term,  so  far  as  it  may  be  called  a  term, 
is  an  ultimatum,  for  our  Bishops  declare  that  the 
Episcopate  is  "  incapable  of  compromise  or  sur- 
render." 

2.  The  reason  advanced  for  thus  insisting  upon 
the  Episcopate  is  that  it  is  an  "  inherent  part "  of 
a  "  sacred  deposit,"  "  the  substantial  deposit  of 
Faith  and  Order  committed  by  Christ  and  His 
Apostles  to  the  Church  unto  the  end  of  the 
world." 

3.  The  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Episcopate  is  not 

*Gen.  Conv.  Journal,  1886,  p.  80. 


1 64  THE  HIS  TORIC  E  PI  SCO  PA  TE . 

expressly  mentioned  among-  our  terms  of  unity;* 
but  the  reason  given  for  offering  the  terms  which  are 
mentioned,  and,  therefore,  the  sense  in  which  the 
Historic  Episcopate  is  insisted  upon,  make  it  im- 
possible to  accept  the  fourth  term  in  good  faith 
without  accepting  that  doctrine. 

4.  No  action  has  been  contemplated  by  this 
Church  which  would  be  likely,  at  any  future  time, 
to  render  the  maintenance  of  the  traditional  posi- 
tion and  doctrine  of  the  Episcopate  an  open  ques- 
tion. 

Let  us  pass  on. 

II. 

The  second  part  of  my  task  is  to  give  an  out- 
line of  the  historical  argument  by  which  our  fourth 
term  of  unity  may  be  defended. 

We  need  not  concern  ourselves  with  the  ab- 
stract question  as  to  whether  it  is  the  beirg  or 
the  %uell-being  of  the  Church  that  makes  the  Epis- 
copate essential;  for,  if  it  is  essential  to  either,  it 
must  be  "  incapable  of  compromise  or  surrender." 
Our  position  is  not  based  upon  abstract  distinc- 
tions, but  is  historical,  and  consists  in  the  belief 
that  the  Historic  Episcopate  was  ordained  by 
Christ  and  His  Apostles,  and  given  the  exclusive 
jurisdiction  and  power  of  self-perpetuation  by  im- 

So  Prof.  Shields  urges  in  his  United  Church,  p.  184. 


THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE.  165 

position  of  hands,  which  is  still  conceded  to  it  by 
three-fourths  of  the  Christian  world. 

{a)  The  time  at  my  disposal  will  not  admit  of 
my  attempting  more  than  to  give  an  outline  of 
our  historical  argument,  and  to  point  out  the  sig- 
nificance of  its  various  parts. 

At  the  outset,  permit  me  to  call  your  attention 
to  the  limits  of  what  should  be  expected  of  us  in 
defending  our  position.  The  burdtn  of  proof  docs 
not  rest  upon  our  shoulders.  Our  position  is  his- 
torically far  more  ancient  than  any  which  opposes 
it,  and  has  been  maintained  by  the  Catholic 
Church  without  interruption  from  the  earliest  age 
to  which  it  is  possible  to  retrace  the  continuity  of 
Christian  thought  and  practice.  From  that  age 
until  the  Protestant  revolution  of  modern  days  no 
departure  from  this  position  occurred  worth  men- 
tioning. Moreover,  the  original  Protestant  bodies 
did  not  break  away  from  the  Episcopate  inten- 
tionally or  on  principle  in  the  first  instance,  but 
invented  the  presbyterial  and  congregational  the- 
ories of  ecclesiastical  polity,  ex  post  facto,  in  order 
to  justify  their  continuance  in  the  state  of  schism 
into  which  their  unregulated  zeal  for  reform  had 
brought  them.*  In  common  with  a  vast  majority 
of  living  Christians,  we  have  inherited  the  mind  of 
the  saints  through  many  unbroken  ages;  and  until 
positive  evidence  is  forthcoming,  sufficient  to  show 

*  V{2k,dii3in's  Apostolical  Succession,  \-)^.  loi,  i3[-i37- 


1 66  THE  HISTORIC  E  PISCO  PA  TE. 

that  this  mhid  was  not  the  pentecostal  mind  of 
the  Church,  nor  that  of  sub-apostolic  Christianity, 
the  paths  of  safety  for  us  will  be  what  we  have 
known  to  be  the  ancient  paths. 

Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  prove  that 
Episcopacy  was  not  established  by  Christ  and 
His  Apostles,  but  was  of  subsequent  and  purely 
human  development.  They  all  fall  into  two 
classes. 

I.  The  first  class  of  arguments  makes  much  of 
names,  and  treats  the  terms  Bishop,  Presbyter 
and  Deacon  as  if  they  possessed  from  the  outset 
a  fixed  and  technical  meaning-  such  as  they  ac- 
quired at  a  later  period.  On  this  assumption  it  is 
argued  that  when  St.  Paul  speaks  of  Timothy's 
ordination  "  with  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of 
the  presbytery,"*  he  means  that  Timothy  was 
ordained  by  those  whom  we  in  our  day  would  call 
Presbyters.  Again,  it  is  alleged,  on  slender 
grounds,  that  in  sub-apostolic  days  the  Bishop  of 
Alexandria  v/as  appointed  and  ordained  by  Pres- 
byters.f 

Without  entering  into  details,  it  is  a  sufficient 

*  I.  Tim.  iv.  14. 

f  Lightfoot,  Dissertations  on  Apostolic  Age,  p.  194,  in  his  anx- 
iety to  avoid  claiming  too  much,  appears  to  concede  this. 
But  Gore,  On  the  Ministry,  pp.  134-144,  and  Note  B,  dis- 
cusses Lightfoot's  reasons  and  shows  that  his  concession 
was  uncalled   fui. 


THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE.  167 

answer  to  both  instances  alleged  to  say  that  the 
use  of  ministerial  titles  was  too  fluctuating  in 
primitive  days  to  be  made  the  basis  of  argument, 
unless  circumstances  can  be  shown  to  indicate  the 
particular  application  of  the  title  which  is  em- 
ployed in  the  instances  cited.  As  Bishop  An- 
drcwes  has  shown,  "  in  the  beginning  regard  was 
not  had  to  distinction  of  names;  the  authority  and 
power  was  ever  distinct,  the  name  not  restrained, 
either  in  this,  or  otiier."*  The  Apostles  them- 
selves were  called  Bishops,  t  Presbyters  %  and 
Deacons.  §  Thesuccessorsof  the  Apostles,  whom 
we  call  Bishops,  were  also  called  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament Apostles, II  Presbyters^  and  Deacons. ■"•'* 
Those  who  belonged  apparently  to  the  Order  be- 
low the  Bishops  were  called  Bishops  also. ft  Our 
Lord  Himself  was  called  ApostIe4t  Bishop. §§ 
Priest  111  and  Deacon. 1["^  Surely  an  argument 
which  depends  for  its  force  upon  the  use  of  a  min- 
isterial title  in  the  New  Testament  must  be  val- 
ueless, unless  supported  by  conclusive  evidence 


*  A   Summary  View  of  the  Government,  Both  of  tJie  Old  and 

Ne%u  Testament.     Ang.  Caih.  Ly.,  pp.  359,  360. 

\  Acts  i.  20.  ft  Phil.  i.  i;  Tit.   i.  7. 

X  I.  Pet.  V.  I.  \X  Ileb,  iii.  i. 

§  I.  Cor.  iii.  5.  §§  I.  Pet.  ii.  25. 

II  Phil,  ii    25.  ill  Heb.  v.  6. 

1  I    Tim.  V.  17.  1[1[  Rom.  xv.  8, 
*■*  I.  Tim.  iv.  6. 


1 68  THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCOP  A  TE. 

as  to  the  application  of  the  title  in  the  case 
referred  to.  This  lack  of  fixed  and  technical 
use  of  names  continued  for  some  time  after  the 
death  of  the  Apostles  in  certain  portions  of  the 
Church,  and  may  be  held  to  account  sufificiently 
for  the  apparent  anomalies  in  Alexandria  and 
elsewhere.   • 

The  Church  did  not  hold  the  doctrine  of  t>e 
Trinity  with  less  faithfulness  fn  ante-Nicene  days, 
because  she  had  not  yet  learned  to  express  its 
contents  with  the  theological  accuracy  which  she 
acquired  by  conflict  with  heretical  subtleties.* 
In  like  manner,  we  may  not  argue  that  the  Church 
failed  to  distinguish  the  Episcopate  from  the  Pres- 
byterate,  or  that  she  did  not  recognize  its  ex- 
clusive authority  and  Divine  sanction,  merely  be- 
cause she  had  not  yet  acquired  that  caution  and 
crystallized  accuracy  in  the  use  of  titles  which  is 
the  result  of  experience  alone. 

2.  The  other  line  of  argument  is  one  which  was 
used  with  great  skill  by  the  late  Dr.  Hatch. f  It 
was  not  original  with  him,  although  by  no  one 
more  plausibly  presented,  but  has  been  frequently 
urged  by  Protestant  writers.  Dr.  Hatch  argued 
as  follows:     The  phenomena  of  Christian  history 


*  Bishop  Bull  and  Newman  have  shown  th.s. 
f  The  Organization  of  the  Early  Christian  Churches  :   being 
the  Bampton  Lectures  of  i8So. 


THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPA  TE.  169 

are  undoubtedly  unique  in  their  transcendent  in- 
terest and  importance:  "but  if  they  or  any  part 
of  them  [f.g..,  those  connected  with  Episcopacy] 
can  be  accounted  for  by  causes  which  are  known 
to  have  operated  in  the  production  of  similar  phe- 
nomena, under  similar  conditions  of  society,  the 
presumption,  in  the  absence  of  positive  evidence 
to  the  contrary,  will  be  in  favour  of  those  who 
infer  an  identity  of  cause,"*  and  claim  that  the 
episcopal  polity  of  the  Church  is  of  natural  origin 
and  accounted  for  by  that  "  economy  of  causes'' 
by  which  the  whole  universe  is  governed.  He 
urges  that  it  is  not  legitimate  to  allow  an  a  priori 
theory  of  what  God  was  likely  to  do  to  override 
the  conclusions  which  follow  from  an  examination 
of  what  He  has  actually  done.f  Yet  his  own 
argument  is  made  illegitimateby  the  very  mistake 
which  he  criticises.  He  honestly  acknowledges 
"  the  disadvantage  under  which  any  one  labours 
who  declines  the  short  and  easy  road"  which  an 
acceptance  of  the  traditional  hypothesis  "seems 
to  offer";  and  admits  that  "a  hypothesis  has  long 
been  current  which  does  not  admit  of  direct  refu- 
tation, and  which  assigns  the  origin  of  this  quasi- 
monarchical  government  to  an  institution  of  our 
Lord  or  the  Apostles  acting  under  His  express 


*  Bampton  Lectures,  pp.  xix  ,  17-19. 
f  Ibid.  pp.  211-216. 


I  70  THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCO  PA  TE. 

directions."  He  prefers,  however,  to  "  wind  his 
way  through  a  dense  undergrowth  of  facts,"  as 
lie  calls  them,  saying  that  "it  is  impossible" — I 
quote  his  words — "to  accept  the  belief  that  the 
Episcopate  forms  an  exception  to  the  general 
course  of  the  divine  government  of  the  world,  and 
to  refrain  from  proceeding  to  the  inquiry  whether 
any  causes  were  in  operation  which  are  adequate 
to  account  for  its  supremacy,  without  resorting  to 
the  hypothesis  of  a  special  and  extraordinary  in- 
stitution."* 

The  argument  is,  as  I  have  said,  skilfully  worked 
out.  Each  phenomenon  is  treated  as  if  belonging 
entirely  to  the  natural  order,  and  made  to  bear  a 
different  meaning  from  that  which  it  admits  of 
when  regarded  from  the  traditional  point  of  view. 
Conjecture  is  made  to  do  the  work  of  ascertained 
fact,  and  an  hypothesis  is  built  up  which  may  ap- 
pear plausible  to  those  who  accept  the  author's  a 
priori  assumption,  in  favor  of  which  he  cannot 
himself  claim  anything  stronger  than  presumption. 
The  validity  of  the  argument  depends  entirely 
upon  the  validity  of  its  assumption  that  Episco- 
pacy cannot  have  been  of  supernatural  origin  and 
Divine  institution.  This  assumption  begs  the 
question,  and  is  the  same  in  kind  with  that  of 
Hume  in  his  argument  against  miracles — the  im- 

*  Bampton  Lectures,  p.  84. 


THE  HIS  TORIC  E  PI  SCO  PA  TE.  171 

possibility  of  supernatural  interventions  in  his- 
tory. The  method  is  that  of  Gibbon,"  who 
thought  he  had  accounted  for  the  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity on  natural  grounds  when  he  had  marshalled 
an  array  of  facts,  partly  real  and  partly  conjectural, 
which  might  under  conceivable  conditions  have 
led  to  the  rise  of  something  like  Christianity  with- 
out miraculous  aid.  No  one  but  a  rationalist 
could  adopt  such  a  method  of  argument  after  dis- 
cerniilg  its  real  nature. f 

It  remains  true,  therefore,  that,  until  rationalism 


*  Decline  ami  Fall,  ch.  xv. 

f  Two  remarks  may  well  be  added: 

(rt)  Dr.  Hatch  bases  his  argument  somewhat  on  analog}'-. 
He  argues  that  the  term  cpiscopos,  for  example,  was  applied 
to  certain  executive  officials  among  the  heathen,  who  had  to 
do  with  the  finances  of  the  bodies  which  appointed  them 
(PP-  37.  38).  Corresponding  officials  in  the  Christian 
Churches,  he  urges  would  naturally  receive  the  same  title. 
This  might  be  so.  But,  waiving  the  question  as  to  whether 
it  was  so,  the  Christian  episcopos  would  not  for  that  reason  be 
merely  a  financial  executive.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
we  are  not  concerned  with  the  origin  of  the  name  "  Episco- 
pos," but  with  the  origin,  nature  and  sanction  of  the  Chris- 
tian Office  which  came  to  be  called  by  that  name. 

(/')  Dr.  Hatch  altogether  ignores  the  historical  indications 
contained  in  the  New  Testament,  urging  the  uncertainty  of 
its  interpretation  and  insinuating  the  doubtfulness  of  the 
date  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles  (pp.  20-23).  Such  a  defect 
must  of  course  distort  his  premises  and  make  his  conclusions 
worthless. 


172  THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE. 

becomes  preferable  to  a  belief  in  the  possibility  of 
miracles,  the  traditional  hypothesis  that  Episco- 
pacy was  instituted  by  "  our  Lord  or  the  Apostles 
acting  under  His  express  directions  "  is  not  capa- 
ble of  refutation.  The  burden  of  proof  remains 
tvith  our  opponents. 

{b)  If  we  were  concerned  with  self-defence 
merely  we  might  rest  content.  But  it  is  our  duty 
to  persuade  men  of  the  truth,  and,  if  possible,  to 
bring  back  those  who  have  wandered  away,  so 
that  they  may  share  with  us  in  the  inestimable 
blessings  which  are  dispensed  by  the  true  Ministry 
of  Christ.  I  shall  endeavor,  therefore,  to  give  an 
outline  of  our  argument  on  its  positive  side.  The 
materials  for  this  argument  are  becoming  richer 
as  the  darkness  which  has  hitherto  veiled  the 
period  following  the  death  of  St.  Paul  is  being 
partially  dissipated.  They  consist  of  ascertained 
facts  ;  and  each  new  fact,  so  far  as  it  bears  on 
the  question,  fits  in  with  and  therefore  strength- 
ens the  traditional  and  accepted  belief  of  the 
Church. 

Our  argument  consists,  in  the  main,  of  four  par- 
ticulars: 

[.  In  the  first  place,  we  learn  from  the  New 
Testament  that  our  Lord  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
institute  a  Ministry,  to  which  He  ordained  His 
Apostles,  and  endowed  it  with  the  powers  which 
belonged  by  the  Father's  appointment  to  His  own 


THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE.  173 

Ministry.*  We  also  find  permanent  duties  and 
promises  attached  to  the  Ministry  thus  instituted, 
such  as  could  not  be  fulfilled  except  on  the  sup- 
position that  there  was  to  be  an  Apostolic  Suc- 
cession of  the  Ministry  until  the  end  of  days.f 

2.  In  the  next  place,  it  is  clear  that,  before  pass- 
ing' away,  the  Apostles  imparted  to  others  their 
ordinary  ministerial  powers,  as  distinguished  from 
extraordinary  and  miraculous  ones,  by  laying  on  of 
hands — not  with  the  same  completeness  in  every 
instance,  but  in  such  wise  that,  before  the  death 
of  St.  Paul,  three  Orders  of  the  Ministry  had  been 
instituted,  similar  to  those  which  we  now  call  the 
Episcopate,  the  Presbyterate  and  the  Diaconate.:}: 
The  names  of  these  Orders  were,  of  course,  un- 
fixed at  first ;  but  the  realities  corresponding  to 
the  names  Bishop,  Priest,  and  Deacon  appear 
so  unmistakably  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  that 
some  critics  have  made  use  of  the  fact  to  throw 
doubt  upon  the  Pauline  authorship  of  these  Epis- 
tles.§ 

In  this  Ministry  we  find  the  power  of  ordaining, 

*  St.  Mark  iii.  14  ;  St.  John  xv.  16  ;  St.  Matt  xxviii.  18  ;  St. 
John  XX.  21. 

f  St.  Mark  xvi.  15  ;  St.  Matt.  x.  23  ;  xxviii.  20. 

:j:This  is  well  shown  in  Eagar's  little  book,  The  Christian 
Ministry  in  the  Netu  Testament,  S.  P.  C.  K. 

§  Cf.  Liddon's  CL-rical  life  and  Work,  pp.  296.  297  For 
an  unanswerable  defence  of  these  Epistles  see  HorVs /udaistic 
Christianity,  ch.  vii. 


174  THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCOP  A  TE. 

which  distinguishes  our  Bishops  from  inferior  Min- 
isters, lodged  in  the  hands  of  successors  of  the 
Apostles,*  which  successors  have  rule  over  the 
Presbyters  and  are  the  guardians  of  the  Faith  and 
Order  of  the  Church. t  There  is  not  the  slightest 
evidence  of  any  upward  development  of  the  Min- 
istry in  New  Testament  days.  The  highest  Order 
— the  Apostolate — appears  first,  and  the  Apostles 
ruled  the  Church  by  reason  of  a  commission  and 
ordination  from  above  simply.  The  Church  con- 
tinued to  be  governed  either  by  the  Apostles  or 
by  those  whom  the  Apostles  ordained  for  the 
oversight.  It  is  true,  as  Lightfoot  says,  that 
Timothy's  relation  to  the  Church  of  Ephesus  ap- 
pears to  have  been  temporary ;  |  yet,  as  he  also 
shows,  the  nature  and  functions  of  his  ministry 
were  episcopal,  and  such  that  the  clergy  of  Ephe- 
sus were  placed  under  him,  although  some  of 
them  appear  to  have  been  his  seniors  in  age.§ 
The  position  of  St.  James  in  Jerusalem  was  also 
that  of  a  Bishop,  ruling  over  the  Presbyters  and 
inferior  clergy.  |  The  localization  of  the  Episco- 
pate and  the  development  of  sees  and  provinces 

*Liddon,  pp.  29S,  299. 
f  Eagar,  pp.  23  et  seq. 

\  Dissertations  on  the  Apostolic  Age,  p.  157. 
§  Ibid.,  p.    15S. 

Ijlbid.,  pp.    155,    156.    Cf.    Acts    xii.   17;  xv.  13   et  seq.;y.y\, 
i3  ;  Gal.  i.  19  ;   ii.  9,  12. 


THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE.  175 

was  gradual ;  and,  however  important  for  the 
preservation  of  ecclesiastical  order,  wis  clearly- 
left  to  be  determined  and,  when  necessary,  modi- 
fied to  suit  the  conditions  and  circumstances  of 
"  the  nations  and  peoples  called  of  God  into  the 
unity  of  His  Church." 

3.  The  third  particular  of  our  argument  is  that, 
so  soon  as  the  Church  of  sub-Apostolic  days 
emerges  into  historical  view,  so  that  its  universal 
Order  can  be  discerned  with  certainty — a  period 
not  later  than  the  third  decade  of  the  second  cen- 
tury*— it  appears  as  possessing  a  threefold  Min- 
istry like  that  which  is  seen  in  the  Pastoral  Epis- 
tles, and  which  is  held  to  be  of  Divine  institution 
and  requirement.  This  Ministry  and  this  doctrine 
of  it  has  continued  without  interruption  to  the 
present  day  f ;  and  is  what  our  Bishops  have  named 
as  essential  to  the  restoration  of  unity. 

4.  Finally,  we  argue  that  such  facts  and  indica- 
tions as  are  available  in  studying  the  period  con- 
cernmg  which  our  present  information  is  less  ade- 
quate— say  from  68  to  130  a.d. — all  fit  in  with  and 


*  Lightfoot,  pp.  143,  160  ;  Schaff's  Reunion  of  Christendom 
(Evang.  Alliance  Doc.  xxxiii.),  p.  23. 

f  Dr.  Davenport  has  shown,  in  a  lecture  before  this  Club 
(Series  of  iSgi,  Lee.  v.,  pp.  193  et  seq)^  how  absolutely  free 
from  question  and  from  need  of  support  by  canon  law  the 
position  of  the  Episcopate  was  during  the  period  of  the  Ecu- 
menical Councils. 


176  THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCOP  A  TE. 

some  directly  confirm  the  hypothesis  that  the 
Ministry  which  emerges  to  our  view  early  in  the 
second  century  not  only  agrees  with  that  which 
St.  Paul  recognized  and  which  the  Apostles  es- 
tablished in  Jerusalem,  but  is  a  continuance  of  it 
in  accordance  with  Apostolic  provision.  This 
ground  has  often  been  travelled  over.  St.  Clem- 
ent of  Rome,  writing  to  the  Corinthians  not  later 
than  95  A.D.,  distinctly  alleges  that  the  Apostles 
had  made  provision  for  a  continuance  of  the  Epis- 
copal Office.*  The  evidence  that  St.  John  be- 
came Bishop  of  Ephesus  and  Metropolitan  of  the 
first  ecclesiastical  province  before  his  death,  which 
occurred  about  lOO  A.D.,  is  fairly  conclusive;  and 
it  is  in  keeping  with  this  that,  in  the  Apocalypse, 
he  is  charged  by  Christ  with  messages  to  the 
Angels  of  the  Seven  Churches  in  the  province  of 
Asia.f  These  Angels  are  most  easily  interpreted 
to  be  Bishops  of  the  Churches  named.:]:  About 
ten  years  after  the  death  of  St.  J  Dhn  §  occurs  the 
emphatic  testimony  of  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch  as 
to  the  necessity  of  Bishops,  Presbyters  and  Dea- 
cons to  the  organization  of  any  true  Church,  ||  and 

*  St,   Clem,  ad  Cor.,  ch.  xliv. 

f  Chapters  i.-iii. 

X  Trench,  On  the  Epistles  to  the  Seven  Churches,  pp.  55-61, 
4th  edit. 

§Lightfoot's  Apostolic  Fathers,  edit.  1SS9;  P.  II.,  Vol.  II., 
PP-  435-472. 

II  Ad  Mag.  ijy  ad  Tral.j,  7;  ad  Phil.  4  .   ad  Sinyr.  8. 


THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCOP  A  TE.  i  7  7 

his  assertion  that  this  Ministry  fills  the  place  oc- 
cupied by  Christ  and  His  Apostles  during  our 
Lord's  earthly  Ministry."  The  genuineness  of 
the  letters  in  which  this  testimony  occurs  has  ■ 
been  completely  established  by  the  late  Bishop 
Lightfoot.f  Perfect  lists  of  the  successors  of  the 
Apostles  in  various  cities  are  preserved  in  the 
writings  of  Eusebius  and  others.:];  Not  one  un- 
doubted fact  can  be  alleged  against  this  evidence; 
and  we  might  as  well  believe  that  the  river  which 
emerges  from  the  mists  beneath  the  Niagara  Falls 
is  a  different  stream  from  that  which  flows  over 
them,  as  to  suppose  that  the  Ministry  which 
has  come  down  to  us  from  the  second  century  is 
other  than  that  which  the  Apostles  received  from 
Christ  and  transmitted  to  their  immediate  suc- 
cessors. Not  one  trace  remains  of  that  mighty 
revolution  which  is  said  to  have  imposed  a  new 
Ministry  of  non-apostolic  and  purely  human  ori- 
gin upon  the  entire  Church,  and  to  have  convinced 
those  who  had  been  taught  at  the  feet  of  the  Apos- 
tles themselves  that  this  novelty  was  of  Divine  and 
Apostolic  institution.! 

The  evidence  for  the  genuineness  of  the  New 

*  Ad  Ephes.  6;  ad  Mag.  6;  ad  Tral.  2. 

\  Apostolic  Fathers,  edit.  1889  ;  P.  II.,  Vol.    I.,  pp.  32S-430. 
J  Gore,   On  the  Ministry,  pp.   128-134,  161-163;  edit.  18S9; 
Lightfoot,  On  the  Ministry  {Diss.  Ap.  Age),  pp.  i63  et  seq. 
§  Cf,  Haddan's  Apjstotica/  Succession,  pp.  104-124. 


1 78  THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE, 

Testament  Scriptures  is  not  so  complete*  as  is  the 
proof  that  "  from  the  Apostles'  time  there  have 
been  these  Orders  in  Christ's  Church — Bishops, 
Priests  and  Deacons,"  of  Divine  sanction  and  re- 
quirement, and  perpetuated  by  means  of  the  lay- 
ing on  of  hands  of  the  Historic  Episcopate,  t 

{c)  Before  passing  on,  it  will  be  well  to  review 
very  briefly  some  of  the  objections  which  have 
been  made  in  order  to  break  the  force  of  such  his- 
torical evidence. 

I.  It  is  said,  for  example,  that  Apostolic  Suc- 
cession necessarily  requires  elaborate  proof,  so 
elaborate,  in  fact,  that  comparatively  few  Chris- 
tians are  in  a  position  to  master  its  details.  It  is 
unlikely,  our  separated  brethren  urge,  that  God 
has  imposed  upon  men  the  duty  of  obedience  to  a 
Ministry  the  authority  of  which  is  so  difficult  to 
establish.  This  objection  ignores  the  circum- 
stance that  the  burden  of  proof  rests  upon  those 
who  reject  the  Episcopate,  and  not  upon  those 
who  obey  it.  The  authority  of  the  Episcopate 
did  not  require  elaborate  proof  in  primitive  days, 

*  Cf.  Haddan's  Apostolical  Succession,  pp.  125-128, 
I  At  the  conclusion  of  his  argument  on  the  Christian  Min- 
istry, Dissertation  on  Apostolic  Age,  pp.  235,  236,  Bishop  Light- 
foot  says:  "If  the  preceding  investigation  be  substantially 
correct,  the  three-fold  Ministry  can  be  traced  to  Apostolic 
direction;  and  short  of  an  express  statement  we  can  pos-ess 
no  better  assurance  of  a  divine  appointment,  or  at  least  a 
divine  sanction." 


THE  HIS  TORIC  E  PISCO  PA  TE.  179 

and  it  has  ever  since  enjoyed  that  kind  of  posses- 
sion which  constitutes  "nine  points  of  the  law," 
aid  which  still  secures  the  obedience  of  three- 
fourths  of  Christendom.  The  difficulties  which 
are  said  to  surround  a  proof  of  its  claims  are  felt 
only  by  sectarians,  and  are  due,  not  to  any  in- 
trinsic doubtfulness  attendant  upon  them,  but  to 
the  disorders  caused  by  the  rise  and  continuance 
of  sectarianism.  It  is  this  sectarianism  which  re- 
quires elaborate  proof  for  its  justification,  not  the 
claims  of  the  Church's  historic  Ministry.* 

2.  Again,  the  phrase  "tactual  succession"  is 
seized  upon,  and  we  are  charged  with  setting 
store  by  mere  externals  instead  of  rejoicing"  in 
that  spiritual  succession  which  is  independent  of 
externals. f  But  the  force  of  such  an  objection 
depends  upon  two  misapprehensions — viz.,  that 
tactual  succession,  as  it  is  called,  is  a  device  of 
ours;  and  that  we  prize  it  as  a  substitute  for  the 
invisible  work  of  the  Spirit.  Wc  hold  that  it  is 
Christ  Who  has  willed  to  authenticate  His  Minis- 
try in  this  manner  from  age  to  age,  in  order  to 
prevent  spiritual  anarchy  and  to  provide  visible 
tokens  of  the  validity  of  the  Ministry  appointed 
to  represent  Him  until  the  end  of  days.  Further- 
more, we  value  this  succession,  not  in  isolation 

*  Cf.  Haddan's  Apostolical  Succession,  pp.  61-69. 
f  The  late  Bishop  Brooks   raised   this   objection  at  one  of 
C'Ur  Church  Congresses. 


i8o  THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE. 

from,  nor  as  a  substitute  for,  the  work  of  God's 
Holy  Spirit,  but  as  an  appointed  means  whereby 
the  Spirit  achieves  His  work  in  the  Church.     If 
many  who  yield  external  conformity  to  the  Min- 
istry   are    unspiritual,   it    is  because  they   misuse 
the    Ministry.     Those,   on   the  other  hand,   who 
strain  after  spiritual  results  apart  from  it,  end  in 
devising  substitutes  for  it  which  are  equally  ex- 
ternal, but    lack    Divine    sanction    and    promise. 
The  objection  to  tactual  succession  is  in  reality  a 
branch  of  the  objection  aj^ainst  the  sacramental 
idea;  and,  if  valid,  would  militate  against  all  of 
the  dispensation  of  grace  wrapped  up  in  the  tak- 
ing of  flesh  by  Him  Who  came  to  save  our  flesh.* 
3.  We  are  told,  however,  that  what  is  objected 
to  is   not   so   much  the   Episcopate  itself  as  the 
superadded   notion   of   exclusive    privilege, f    the 
putting  of  an  Order  of  men  between  the  soul  and 
God,  and  the  unchurching  of  those  denominations 
which   do   not   possess   the  Historic   Episcopate. 
It  is  sufUcient  to  reply  that  what  is  termed  ex- 
clusive privilege  is  simply  stewardship^  instituted 
by  God.     No    doubt    the  stewards  are    quite  un- 
worthy, but  certainly,  as  the  Bishop  of  Ohio  says, 
it  is  not  the  fault  of  the  Episcopal  Church  "  that 

*  Cf.  Bishop  Seymour's  Historic  Episcopate,  Vol.  I.,  No.  i  of 
Church  Unity  Quarterly^  pp.  19-22;  also  Haddan's  Apostolical 
Succession,  pp.  32,   33,49-51. 

f  Geo.  A.  Gates,  D.D.,  in  Bradford's  Question  of  Unity,  p.  47. 


THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE.  l8i 

this  Ministry  is  her  inheritance.  The  burden  was 
imposed  too  long  ago,  and  has  been  borne  for  too 
many  generations  to  be  objected  to  now  at  this 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century."  *  We  are  indeed 
convinced  that  no  denominations  can  lawfully 
claim  the  name  Church  without  the  Apostolic 
Ministry,  but  to  say  that  we  have  done  the  un- 
churching is  not  in  harmony  with  the  facts  of  his- 
tory.f  The  Church's  Ministry  does  not  put  itself 
between  the  soul  and  God,  but  is  Christ's  instru- 
ment for  bringing  souls  to  Himself.;}:  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  add  that  we  do  not  judge  Protestants. 
Unavoidable  ignorance  and  unfortunate  conditions 
account  for  many  things;  and  God  is  manifestly 
blessing  many  in  spite  of  sad  mistakes.  He  is  not 
limited  by  His  instruments  in  every  case,  but  men 
are,  when  they  are  able  to  discover  them. 

4.  Another  objection  is  drawn  from  the  fact 
that  the  Church  is  an  organism  and  grows.  Why, 
it  is  urged,  should  not  such  a  thing  conform  to 
the  law  of  growing  things  and  change,  as  it  ma- 
tures ?§     The   answer    is  simple.     The  changes 


*  Bishop  Leonard  in  the  New  York  Independent,  March  8, 
189^. 

f  Bishop  Seymour's  Historic  Episcopate,  p.  13,  HadJan's 
Apostolical  Succession,  pp.  58-61;  Gore,  The  Ministry,  pp. 
109-ni,  344-348. 

:t:  Haddan's  Apostolical  Succession,  pp.  41-49. 

§  VVm.  Cooley,  in  The  Question  0/  Unity,  pp.  4r,  42. 


1 8  2  THE  I/IS  ■/  'ORIC  EP I  SCOP  A  TE. 

which  the  higher  organisms  undergo  in  their 
growth  do  not  affect  the  structural  type  when 
that  is  once  developed.  The  Church's  Ministry- 
pertains  to  her  structural  type.  Once  developed, 
it  never  can  change  in  constitution,  whatever  may 
be  the  growth  and  superficial  developments  in  the 
Church.  Structural  change  would  originate  a  new 
organism.     It  could  not  perpetuate  the  old. 

Neither  these  nor  any  other  difficulties  will 
trouble  men  after  they  realize  that  Christianity 
is  something  more  than  a  philosophy  or  set  of 
opinions.  There  are  principles,  indeed,  and  a 
"Faith  once  for  all  delivered "  which  we  must 
preserve;  but  the  Church  is  a  dispenser  of  sacra- 
mental grace  as  well  as  of  doctrine,  and  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Faith  itself  depends  upon  the  con- 
tinuance of  that  Ministry  which  was  ordained  by 
Christ  to  bear  witness  in  His  Name.* 

III. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  bearing  of  our 
Bishops'  position  on  the  Church  Unity  problem. 

{a)  You  will,  of  course,  agree  with  me  when  I  say 
that  it  is  our  duty  to  promote  a  restoration  of  the 
visible  unity  of  the  Church.  Such  unity  would 
make  it  possible  to  do  much  which  has  hitherto 
been  impracticable,  in  overcoming  religious  indif- 

*Haddan's  Apostolical  Succession,  pp.  55-58. 


THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCOP  A  TE.  183 

ference  at  home  and  in  converting  the  heathen 
abroad.  And  such  unity  is  to  be  sought,  not 
merely  as  a  means,  but  as  an  end  in  itself,  since 
visible  unity  signifies  visible  charity,  the  very 
chief  of  Christian  graces,  and  our  Lord  Himself 
prayed  for  its  maintenance  in  the  solemn  night  of 
His  betrayal.* 

The  Protestants  of  our  day  did  not  originate 
sectarianism,  although  they  have,  none  the  less, 
inherited  a  schismatic  position.  We  need  not  be 
blaming  them,  therefore,  when  we  say  that  the 
nature  and  genesis  of  their  position  hinders  them 
from  appreciating  as  Churchmen  do  the  sinful  na- 
ture of  schism  t  and  the  necessity  of  adopting  tlie 
right  course,  however  difficult,  for  its  removal. 
There  is  considerable  talk  of  unity  in  the  air,  and 
many  noble  utterances  have  been  made;  but  we 
err  greatly  if  we  think  that  our  separated  brethren 
understand  what  true  Church  Unity  is  and  in- 
volves, or  that  any  widespread  yearning  exists 
among  them  for  the  restoration  of  unity. 

We  ought  not  to  blame  them  for  this  limitation 
of  vision,  caused  as  it  is  by  remote  circumstances. 
Yet,  while  bound  to  be  courteous  and  kind,  we 
are  bound  to  be  true  and  candid.  We  may  not 
help  to  perpetuate  or  acquiesce  in  the  e.xistingig- 

*St.  John  xvii.  21.     Cf.  Dr.  Shields's  United  Church,  p.  117. 
f  Dr.  Schaff,  Reunion  of  Christendom,  pp.  8-14,  is  a  good  ex- 
ample of  this  failure.     Cf.  '^xz.<\{ox6!^  Question  of  Unity, -^   7. 


1 84  THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE. 

norance  of  separatists  as  to  the  real  meaning  of 
their  position,  the  sinfulness  of  schism,  and  the 
course  necessary  to  be  pursued  in  order  to  restore 
visible  unity  and  charity.* 

{b)  It  is  from  such  a  point  of  view  that  our 
B  shops  have  declared  the  Historic  Episcopate 
to  be  "  essential  to  the  restoration  of  unity  among 
the  divided  branches  of  Christendom."  Their  pur- 
pose, if  I  mistake  not,  was  didactic.  They  were 
not  making  demands.  Strictly  speaking,  they 
were  not  offering  terms,  so  much  as  exercising 
the  prophetic  Office  which  Christ  gave  to  His 
Apostolic  Ministry  and  which  they  may  not 
neglect  to  exercise  when  proper  occasions  arrive. 
Certain  memorials  addressed  to  them  concerning- 
the  necessity  of  facing  the  problem  of  Church 
Unity  moved  them  to  declare  by  way  of  instruction 
to  all  who  would  listen,  not  what  they  chose  to 
demand,  but  some  of  the  things  which,  under  any 
circumstances,  are  essential  \.o  the  restoration  of 
unity.  Among  these  things  they  named  the  His- 
toric Episcopate.  They  expressed  or  implied 
three  reasons  for  its  necessity,  but  neither  stated 
nor  implied  their  own  choice  as  having  anything 
to  do  with  the  matter. 

I.  Tiie  first  of  these  reasons  f  is  that  the  Epis- 


*  Bradford's  Question  of  Unity,  pp.  20,  2i. 

f  I  have  d  scussed  these  reasons  elsewhere  in  my  pam- 
phlet. The  Historic  Position  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  Young 
Churchman  Co  ,  Milwaukee,  pp.  56-61. 


THE  HIS  TORTC  EP I  SCOP  A  TE.  185 

copate  is  an  inherent  part  of  "  the  substantial  de- 
posit of  Faith  and  Order  committed  by  Christ  and 
His  Apostles  to  the  Church  unto  the  end  of  the 
world."     The  question  at  issue  here  is  not  one  of 
mere  human  polity,  subject  to  possible  modifica- 
tion, but  one  which  relates  to  the  permanent  struc- 
ture and  organic  continuity  of  the  Church  of  God, 
and  to  the  preservation  of  the  Faith  and  of  the 
covenanted  means  of  grace.*     To  surrender  the 
Episcopate  would  not  church  the  sects,  but  would 
unchurch  ourselves  and  originate  one  more  sect  to 
gladden  the  arch-enemy  of  Christ's   Kingdom,  f 
And  even  should  such  surrender  end  in  the  unifica- 
tion of  non-episcopal  bodies,  it  would  not  secure 
Church  Unity,  but  would  bring  to  birth  a  new  thing 
— a  huge  kingdom  of  men,  differing  in  kind  from  the 
Church    for   whose    unity   Christ    prayed.      The 
Church   is   a  living  and  unchangeable  organism, 
founded  and  inhabited  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  no 
combination    of    human  organizations  can    ever 
take  its  place  or  perform  its  functions.  % 

2.  Two  other  reasons  for  the  necessity  of  the 
Historic  Episcopate  are  implied  when  our  Bishops 
say  that  unity  "  can  be  restored  only  by  the  return 


*  Cf.  Bp.  Jackson,  New  York  Independent,  Mch.  3,  1894. 

t  Cf.  Bp.  Tuttle,  New  York  Independent,  Mch.  8,  1894. 

X  This  mode  of  statement  comes  to  me  from  one  of  our 
missionaries  abroad,  whose  sense  of  its  truth  is  intensified 
by  his  missionary  experience. 


1 86  THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCOP  A  TE. 

of  all  Christian  Communions  to  the  principles  of 
unity  exemplified  by  the  undivided  Catholic 
Church  during  the  first  ages  of  its  existence." 

The  first  of  these  is  that  the  Historic  Episco- 
pate is  the  only  Ministry  which  has  ever  held  the 
Church  together  in  visible  unity.  This  is  too  plain 
to  need  special  argument.  The  ancient  Church 
was  visibly  one,  and  was  governed  by  the  Episco- 
pate, each  Bishop  representing  the  whole  Episco- 
pal College  in  his  own  jurisdiction.*  The  en- 
croachments of  the  papal  system,  by  which  the 
Episcopate  was  displaced  in  effect,  if  not  in  the- 
ory,t  cut  Christendom  in  twain  ;  :|:  and  the  devel- 
opment of  presbyterial  and  congregational  polities 
originated  the  countless  divisions  which  confront 
us  in  this  land.  § 

*  St.  Cyprian,  in  his  treatise  On  the  Unity  of  the  Church,  says; 
"  The  Episcopate  is  one;  it  is  a  whole,  in  which  each  enjoys 
full  possession  "  (ch.  4).  Library  of  the  Fathers,  Ox- 
ford, 

f  Dr.  Bright,  Waymarks  of  History,  p.  207,  reminds  us  that 
even  the  ^'^atican  decree  bears  witness  to  "  that  ordinary 
power  of  episcopal  jurisdiction  whereby  Bishops,  who,  being 
placed  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  have  succeeded  in  the  room  of  the 
Apostles,  act  as  true  pastors,"  etc. 

:];  The  Pope  excommunicated  the  East  in  1054,  and  the 
Ecclesia  Anglicana  in  the  lime  of  Elizabeth.  To  the  last- 
named  act  no  retort  in  kind  has  ever  been  made. 

§  Cf.  Bps.  Boyd  Vincent  and  Graves,  in  New  York  Inde- 
pendent, Mch.  8,  1894.  Prof.  Shields.  United  Church,  pp.  89- 
93,  exhibits  the  unifying  power  of  the  Episcopate. 


THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE.  187 

3.  Finally,  our  Bishops  imply  that  to  ask  us  to 
surrender  the  Episcopate  is  to  ask  what  would 
be  altogether  ineffectual  unless  we  could  draw 
after  us  those  bodies  which,  like  this  body,  have 
inherited  the  Ministry  of  the  ancient  and  undivided 
Church  and  regard  it  as  "  incapable  of  compro- 
mise or  surrender."  If  two-thirds  of  professing 
Christians  still  continue  to  maintain  Episco- 
pacy, a  surrender  on  our  part  will  accomplish 
nothing  for  unity ;  *  but  will  simply  put  us  into 
the  sectarian  camp,  and  deprive  us  forever  of  our 
mission  of  reclaiming  those  who  have  wandered 
away  from  the  covenanted  ministry  of  grace  and 
truth. t  We  may  not,  even  for  the  sake  of  reclaim- 
ing others,  reduce  ourselves  to  the  necessity  of  be- 
ing reclaimed.  Those  who  ask  us  to  surrender  the 
Episcopate  do  not  perceive  the  world-wide  scope 
of  the  problem  of  unity,:}:  and  the  impossibility 
that  measures  which  violate  the  religious  convic- 
tions of  the  bulk  of  the  Christian  world  should  be 
otherwise  than  a  hindrance  to  ultimate  unity. 

{c)  At  this  point  it  may  be  well  to  notice  certain 
schemes  for  the  unification  of  denominations  in 
this  land ;  schemes  which  recognize  that  a  place 

*  Bp.  Doane,  New  York  Independent,  Mch.  8,  1894,  shows 
that  we  cannot  act  apart  from  the  English  Chuich. 

f  Cf.  Bp.  Niles,  New  York  Independent,  Mch,  8,  1894 ; 
Bradford's  Question  of  Unity,  p.  8 

\  I  believe  Bp.  Coxe  has  pointed  this  out. 


1 88  THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPA  TE. 

must  be  allowed  for  episcopal  polity,  considered 
simply  as  polity,  but  which  have  the  common  fault, 
as  I  shall  try  to  show,  of  involving  compromise  of 
principle  on  our  part.* 

I.  First  in  order  is  the  Confederation  scheme, 
which  would  not  involve  the  destruction  of  existing 
denominations,  but  merely  their  federation  under 
a  General  Conference  on  the  basis  of  the  four  terms 
of  unity,  but  without  any  alteration  in  denomina- 
tional standards  or  polities,  beyond  what  would 
be  necessary  for  conformity  to  the  four  terms, 
apart  from  any  doctrinal  interpretation  of  them. 
This  scheme  assumes  that  nothing  more  is  needed 
to  put  a  sectarian  body  in  a  position  to  be  treated 
with  and  united  with  on  equal  terms  t  than  a 
readiness  on  its  part  to  adopt  the  "  Quadrilateral" 
in  the  lowest  and  most  external  sense  which  can 
be  read  into  it.  In  short,  it  means  that  the  Church 
of  the  future  shall  make  an  open  question  of  every 
Catholic  dogma  and  principle  which  is  not  ex- 
pressly guarded  in  the  Quadrilateral  when  isolated 
from  the  rest  of  the  Declaration  on  Unity. 

2.  Next  is  the  Consolidation  or  Constitutional 
Amendment  scheme,  which  means  that  the  Quad- 
rilateral, without  interpretative  matter  of  any  kind, 
shall  be  put  into  the  preamble  or  main  body  of 

*I  borrow  my  data  in    this  discussion  chiefly  from  Prof. 
Shields's   United  Church,  pp.  93  et  seq, 

f  Cf.  Bradford  s  Question  of  Unity,  pp.  14,  16. 


THE  HISTORIC  E  PISCO  PA  TE.  1 89 

the  Constitution  of  our  General  Convention,  and 
that  such  legislation  shall  be  gradually  accom- 
plished as  will  reduce  the  obligatory  principles  of 
doctrine,  discipline,  worship  and  polity  in  the 
Church  to  the  level  of  the  Quadrilateral  as  thus 
limited.*  This  assumes  that  our  Bishops  set  forth 
their  four  terms  as  a  complete  list  of  the  things 
which  are  "  incapable  of  compromise  or  surrender," 
so  that  Confirmation,  for  example,  may  be  treated 
as  non-essential,  t  If  they  meant  this,  they  meant 
something  subversive  of  Christianity.  I,  for  one, 
do  not  believe  it  % 

3.  Finally,  there  is  the  organic  growth  scheme, 
as  it  is  called,  which  does  not  look  to  any  present 
disturbance  of  denominational  lines,  but  to  a  series 
of  concurrent  ordinations,  in  which  no  doctrinal 
issues  are  to  be  raised,  but  a  ministry  is  to  be  created 
in  the  denominations,  the  validity  of  which  all 
will  recognize  ;  this  to  be  followed  by  a  regulated 
reciprocity  of  pulpits  and  increasing  mutual  ap- 
proximation until  all  grounds  of  separation  disap- 
pear.§     Apart   from   its  visionary  character,  the 

*Hunlington"s  Peace  of  the  Churchy  pp.  231  et  seq. 

t  Cf.  lleb,  vi.   2. 

X  It  is  often  objected  that  we  should  not  allow  non-essen- 
tials to  keep  us  apart.  But  the  very  question  at  issue  is, 
"  What  is  essential  and  what  non-essential  ? " 

§Dr.  Shields's  plan.  United  Church,  pp.  99  et  seq.,  204  et 
seq. 


I  90  THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCO  PA  TE. 

plan  assumes  that  doctrinal  questions  can  be 
waived  lawfully  by  the  Church,  and  that  our 
Bishops  can  consecrate  to  an  Office  instituted  by 
Christ  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Faith  those  who 
are  expressly  permitted  to  substitute  modern  sys- 
tems for  the  original  "  Faith  once  for  all  delivered 
to  the  saints." 

An  important  distinction  needs  to  be  mentioned 
in  connection  with  this.  I  mean  that  between 
toleration  and  pemnission.  The  Church  is  required 
to  maintain  the  true  Faith  against  every  form  of 
"  erroneous  and  strange  doctrine  contrary  to  God's 
Word."  Therefore  she  cannot  permit,  or  in  any 
manner  connive  at,  heretical  teaching  on  the  part 
of  those  whom  she  ordains  with  the  laying  on  of 
hands.*  She  may  indeed  tolerate  v(\\xc\\  imperfect 
faith  and  error,  not  as  making  such  error  laiuful, 
but  as  refraining  for  the  moment  from  disciplining 
what  is  7mlawfuly  when  the  general  maintenance 
of  truth  is  not  imperiled  thereby  and  when  imme- 
diate discipline  would  quench  a  smoking  flax  and 
produce  greater  evils  than  it  would  cure.  No 
doubt  many  Bishops  have  been  too  lax  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  discipline,  and  have  shown  more  regard 
for  the  feelings  of  heretics  than  for  those  of  the 
faithful.    May  God  forgive  them  !    But  such  abuses 


*  There  are  some  excellent  observations  on  this  subject  in 
Bp.  Creighton's  recent  book  on  Persecution  and  Tolerance,  the 
last  lecture. 


THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPA  TE.  191 

pale  into  insignificance  beside  the  proposal  to  ad- 
vance throngs  of  preachers  to  the  Priesthood  with 
the  distinct  understanding  that  they  may  continue 
to  preach  the  anti-sacerdotal  and  anti-Catholic 
systems  of  doctrine  which  they  have  hitherto 
adopted.  This  would  be  more  than  toleration  of 
error.  It  would  be  giving  a  recognized  place  to 
heresy  in  that  Ministry  which  was  ordained  for 
its  overthrow.  It  would  be  treason  against  Him 
Who  is  the  Author  and  Finisher  of  our  Faith.* 

My  task  is  nearly  finished,  and  I  have  nothing 
to  add  except  by  way  of  concluding  this  series  of 
lectures  on  Church  Unity. 

{a)  The  Declaration  on  Unity  has  been  taken 
to  signify  a  change  of  ecclesiastical  position,  and 
to  contain  proposals  looking  towards  a  possible 
course  of  action  hitherto  unthought  of  by  this 
Church.  In  reality  it  was  put  forth,  not  to  adver- 
tise or  propose  a  new  departure,  but  in  order  to 
exhibit  certain  ancient  principles  for  which  this 
Church  has  always  stood.  Our  Bishops  said  noth- 
ing inconsistent  with  their  traditional  position 
when  they  summed  up  the  things  essential  in  the 
phrase,  "the  principles  of  unity  exemplified  by  the 
undivided  Catholic   Church  during  the  first  ages 

*Heb.  xii.  2.  Bp.  Whipple  shows  that  we  may  not  sub- 
stitute courtesy  for  principle  ;  and  Bp.  Whitehead  is  unable 
to  discern  any  good  results  likely  to  follow  upon  a  yielding 
contrary  to  conviction.     H&viYovk  Independent,  Hch.  2i,  1894. 


192  THE  HISTORIC  E  PI  SCOP  A  TE. 

of  its  existence."  Furthermore,  the  four  terms, 
so-called,  were  not  named  as  the  sum  total  of 
these  essential  principles,*  but  as  parts  simply;* 
parts,  it  is  true,  which,  if  accepted  in  the  sense 
which  the  body  of  the  Declaration  requires,  in- 
volve and  lead  on  to  all  the  rest.  This  Church 
does  not  propose  to  achieve  unity  either  by  level- 
ling down,  or  by  any  novel  platform  or  procedure; 
but  by  levelling  up,  and  by  a  return  to  the  an- 
cient paths.  And  the  principles  which  she  insists 
upon  are  not  peculiar  to  what  is  called  the  Prot- 
estant Episcopal  denomination,  but  have  been 
maintained  by  the  Catholic  Church  of  every  age 
and  race.  They  are  maintained  by  this  Church 
because  she  is  a  true  Communion  of  the  Catholic 
Church. 

{]})  This  attitude  represents  principles  and  con- 
victions which  are  bound  up  with  the  very  being 
of  the  Church,  and  derives  its  outspoken  character 
from  the  belief  that  the  structural  principles  of  a 
Church  which  God  thought  worthy  of  purchasing 
with  His  own  Blood  are  worth  proclaiming,  and 
that  truth  and  candor  make  for  unity  and  charity. f 
Our  Bishops  meant  to  express  themselves  clearly, 


*  Prof.  Shields  appears  to  think  that  they  were  United 
Church,  pp.  130,  188. 

f  Open  assertion  can  never  be  "  infelicitous  "  when  silence 
would  be  misleading,  unless  the  manner  is  infelicitous.  Cf. 
Prof.  .Shields,  United  Church,  pp.  150-153. 


THE  HISTORIC  EP I  SCO  PA  TE.  193 

and  did  so  cxp  ess  themselves.  It  is  not  their 
fault  that  their  words  have  been  misunderstood. 
•  (<;)  My  brethren,  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church 
will  come  indue  time.  God  speed  the  day  !  And 
we  can  hasten  the  time,  provided  we  are  faithful 
to  "  the  principles  of  unity  exemplified  by  the  un- 
divided Catholic  Church  during  the  first  ages  of 
its  existence";  not  otherwise.  Novel  schemes 
and  forced  measures  will  not  secure  or  hasten  the 
result.  A  contradiction  of  principles  exists  which 
can  be  remedied  only  by  a  change  of  convictions 
on  the  part  of  those  who  have  forsaken  the  an- 
cient paths.*  Disguise  it  though  we  may,  there 
must  be  surrender — not  by  compulsion,  nor  to 
men,  but  by  conversion,  and  to  God  and  His  an- 
cient Church. 

I  do  not  look  for  any  such  surrender  on  the  part 
of  sectarian  bodies,  although  God  may  bring  even 
this  to  pass.  It  is  more  likely  that  individual 
wanderers  will  discover  the  true  way,  provided 
those  who  are  under  obligation  to  proclaim  it  have 
the  courage  of  their  convictions  and  the  charity 
which  is  true,  and  return  to  that  centre  of  unity 
— the  Historic  Episcopate — from  which  their 
fathers  departed.     If  I  am  right,  Church  Unity 


*  Protestants  naturally  fail  to  realize  this.  See  Prof. 
Shields,  pp.  81-83  7-31,  12  >;  Shaff  on  Reunion,  pp.  2-4.  Bat 
cf.  Bradford's  Question  of  Unity,  p.  25. 


194  THE  HISTORIC  EPISCOPATE. 

will  result  from  a  survival  of  the  fittest — i.e.,  the 
Divine — and  from  purer  and  richer  catholicity  in 
what  survives,  such  as  will  prove  beyond  doubt 
that  there  is  a  common  Faith  and  Order  in  the 
Catholic  ChurcJi.  Then  will  the  different  branches 
of  Christendom  recognize  that  they  belong  to 
one  family,  and  should  endeavor  "  to  keep  the 
unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace";  for 
"  there  is  one  Body,  and  one  Spirit,  even  as  ye  are 
called  in  one  hope  of  your  calling;  one  Lord,  one 
Faith,  one  Baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of  all, 
Who  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  you 
all." 


It  seems  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  the 
Church  Club  is  not  responsible  for  any  individual 
opinions  on  points  not  ruled  by  the  Church, 
which  the  learned  theologians  who  have  been 
good  enough  to  lecture  under  its  auspices  may 
have  expressed. 


Ilfnlfi'i"!  ^'"'<"°9"^a'  Seminar>-Speer  Library 


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